Inside the logistical, creative, and culinary choreography behind the 2026 Globes
Three days before the Golden Globes, the Beverly Hilton feels closer to an active construction site than the epicenter of Hollywood glamour. Power tools echo through unfinished corridors, concrete dust lingers in the air, and traffic crawls along Wilshire Boulevard amid cones and barricades. It is loud, imperfect, and visibly unfinished. There is no immediate sign that, within days, this same location will host the most photographed arrivals of awards season and transform into what insiders still call Hollywood’s biggest party.
This tension between disorder and elegance has always defined the Golden Globes. For more than eighty years, the ceremony has thrived on contrasts. It is the most social and free-flowing stop of awards season, less formal than the Oscars, more unpredictable than the Emmys, and famously alive. Champagne flows. Speeches wander. The room breathes.
This year, however, that contrast is no longer metaphorical. It is physical.
Speaking exclusively to Los Angeles, director and show runner Glenn Weiss does not hesitate when asked what makes this year different.
“The biggest challenge is not creative,” he says, looking around the active renovation. “It’s literal. It’s what’s left of this building.”
For decades, the Golden Globes red carpet unfolded inside the Beverly Hilton’s long corridors and covered walkways. Those spaces are now gone. Renovation erased them entirely. Rather than replicate the past, the production team chose reinvention.
“Necessity is the mother of invention,” Weiss says with a laugh. “We had a red carpet in a certain place here for years, and then the construction just took it away. So we had to come up with something different.”
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Different this year means bold, exposed, and unapologetically ambitious. The red carpet moves completely outdoors, stretching nearly five hundred feet along Wilshire Boulevard. What might have felt risky has become the defining visual of the ceremony.
At the center of that reinvention are production designers Jitter Garcia and Kyle Absolom, who reveal exclusively to LA Magazine how the new arrival experience was built from the ground up.
“We knew the renovation was happening more than a year ago,” they explain. “So we started thinking about this long before anything was built.”
Their answer is a sculptural arrival staircase that replaces the traditional flat press backdrop. Instead of stopping at one mark, talent will descend step by step, creating multiple natural photo moments as they move.
“We wanted it to feel like motion, not posing,” Garcia explains. “Almost like a runway.”
Every detail was calculated.
“We were very intentional about the measurements of the steps,” Garcia says. “We were thinking about the skirts, the trains, the heels.”
Testing was hands-on. Garcia walked the unfinished stairs herself in heels and different outfits, watching how fabric moved and how bodies adjusted.
“It felt kind of silly,” she admits. “But it actually helped a lot.”
Even after completion, the design was not locked.
“We were done,” Absalom says. “And then we looked at it again and thought it might not read correctly on camera. So we redid the whole thing.”
To avoid surprises on the night, the duo invited stylists for a private preview.
“I think it was really appreciated,” Garcia says. “Now they know exactly what their clients are getting into.”
As the spectacle unfolds outside, precision takes over inside. The Golden Globes kitchen operates more like a broadcast control room than a restaurant.
Chef Nobu Matsuhisa speaks to Los Angeles with calm certainty.
“We will serve around twelve hundred plates,” he says. “Everything has to be exact.”
Signature dishes return alongside subtle updates.
“Last year everyone loved it,” he explains. “This year, I made a little switch. Sushi, people always like this.”
An additional sushi bar remains active off camera throughout the night, keeping the flow uninterrupted.
“Most of the people here I already know,” Matsuhisa adds. “They come to my restaurants. I’m very comfortable.”
Back on the production side, Weiss brings a rare perspective. He has directed some of the highest-pressure live broadcasts in television, including the Oscars and the Emmys. When asked by LA Magazine whether the spontaneity of the Golden Globes scares him, especially in an era where unpredictable moments have gone viral for all the wrong reasons, he smiles.
“The spontaneity is exactly what makes the Globes the Globes,” he says. “But yes, it’s also the thing you have to respect the most.”
He explains that, unlike other ceremonies, the Golden Globes cannot be overcontrolled.
“If you try to lock everything down, you lose the energy,” Weiss says. “You have to let the room breathe. You have to let things happen.”
Still, live television is unforgiving.
“The moments that keep you on edge are the ones you can’t plan for,” he says. “Transitions. Movement. Getting people from one place to another when the clock is ticking. That’s where live television really happens.”
Beyond logistics, this year carries deeper weight for the Golden Globes as an institution. In recent years, the ceremony faced public scrutiny and uncertainty. Under the leadership of its new president, Helen Hoehne, a German-born journalist with an international media background, the organization entered a period of recalibration and renewal.
With a renewed focus on credibility, transparency, and global relevance, and with the support of Penske Media Corporation, the Golden Globes moved into a new chapter. The goal was not to change the soul of the show, but to strengthen it.
That balance remains central to Weiss’s approach.
“The Globes historically is not a show that has an in memoriam,” he explains. “We’re trying to keep the vibe in a different place.”
Acknowledgment, he notes, is never simple.
“When you start making special mention of one, there are many others we’ve lost as well. We want to be very conscious of that and protect the tone.”
That tone was set in motion this week with the official red carpet rollout, marking the beginning of the 83rd Annual Golden Globes party circuit.
By Sunday night, the drills will be silent, traffic rerouted, the timing will land, and the party will begin.
That is the magic of the Golden Globes. Not just an awards show, but a meticulously engineered celebration that transforms disruption into spectacle and turns a construction zone into Hollywood’s biggest party.
“Hollywood’s Party of the Year®” will air live on CBS and stream on Paramount+ on Sunday, January 11, 2026, at 8 p.m. ET / 5 p.m. PT.
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