Schwarzman, co-founder of the Blackstone Group, took over an Upper East Side institution, the Park Avenue Armory, in 2007 for a little 1500-person 60th birthday party. The man Fortune had dubbed "Wall Street's man of the moment" sure knew how to celebrate it: $3-5 million to deck out the cavernous Armory space and then fill it with celebs such as Patti LaBelle, Martin Short and Rod Stewart. Later that year, Schwartzman would become infamous as much for his $400 stone crab taste as the nearly $700 million he pocketed in Blackstone's IPO.
The party became a symbol of Wall Street excess and the IPO reviled when the market crashed just months later. At a Fortune breakfast in 2008, Schwarzman even admitted that he wouldn't do the party over again if he could. But the bash didn't cost what one might expect for a party of such lasting notoriety. According to Marto, musical acts increasingly cost north of $1 million, the fee Stewart reportedly got. Top acts sometimes charge that much to play only several songs -- you pay more for the appearance than the length of set.
NEXT: David Boies, 2006; 2011
