How to Do the Monaco Grand Prix in Style

By The Mason Events Team  ·  April 2026  ·  9 min read

There is no sporting event on earth quite like the Monaco Grand Prix. For one weekend each May, the principality becomes the centre of the world — a vertiginous amphitheatre of yachts, terraces and Belle Époque hotels wrapped around a street circuit that Formula 1 would never build today and could never bear to lose. It is the race every driver dreams of winning and every spectator dreams of attending. But Monaco is also small, expensive and ferociously oversubscribed, which means that how you do it matters more here than at any other event in sport. This is a guide to doing it properly.

Where to Watch

The first decision is your vantage point, and in Monaco the options are gloriously varied. A yacht in the harbour is the definitive Monaco experience — moored stern-to against the barriers at the Quai Antoine 1er, with the cars screaming past metres away and the Mediterranean at your back. It is the most coveted way to watch the race, combining grandstand views with the freedom of your own floating base for the weekend. We arrange yacht hospitality from a place at the table on a shared superyacht to full private charter for a group.

The grandstands each have their character: Grandstand T for the drama of the swimming pool complex, the Tribune at the harbour for the start-finish straight, and the Casino-area terraces for the climb to the most photographed corner in racing. For the ultimate paddock experience, the Formula 1 Paddock Club offers pit-lane access, gourmet dining and the chance to walk the grid — the closest a spectator can get to the heart of the sport.

Where to Stay

Monaco itself has only a handful of hotels, and they book a year or more in advance at extraordinary rates over Grand Prix weekend. The legendary Hôtel de Paris and Hôtel Hermitage sit at the centre of it all, steps from the casino and the circuit. For those who prefer a little distance from the intensity, the Cap-d'Ail and Roquebrune coast just outside the principality offers beautiful properties with easy transfer in, and the option of arriving by boat or helicopter to skip the road closures entirely. We also place clients on chartered yachts as floating accommodation — the most seamless way to be inside the action without fighting for a room.

"Monaco is not really about the race. It is about the three days around it — and the people who do it well make those three days extraordinary."

Beyond the Track

The racing is only part of the weekend. Thursday's practice sessions are followed by the famous dark day of Friday, when the circuit falls quiet and Monaco turns to long lunches at Monte-Carlo Beach and parties that run into the early hours. Saturday's qualifying is, on this circuit above all others, very nearly as decisive as the race — overtaking is so difficult that pole position is gold. And around it all swirls the social season: the rooftop of the Fairmont above the hairpin, dinner at a Joël Robuchon table, the after-parties that define the Riviera in late May. We handle the reservations and the access that make this side of the weekend sing.

The Practicalities

Monaco during the Grand Prix is a logistical puzzle: roads close, the population multiplies and helicopters shuttle constantly between Nice airport and the principality. The single most valuable thing we provide is seamless movement — private helicopter transfer from Nice (seven minutes, and spectacular), tender access for yacht guests, and a concierge on the ground who knows exactly how to get you from A to B when half the streets are a racetrack. Book early: the best yacht berths, hotel suites and hospitality packages are spoken for many months ahead, and exact ticketing is confirmed on enquiry as the calendar firms up.

How Mason Events Plans It

We build Monaco around your group from the ground up — yacht or terrace or Paddock Club, hotel or charter, the dinners and the parties, the helicopter that lifts you over the traffic. Every package includes flights, transfers, accommodation, your chosen hospitality and an on-call concierge throughout the weekend. Tell us how you want to experience the greatest show in motorsport, and we'll make it happen.

The Freeride World Tour: A Spectator's Guide

By The Mason Events Team  ·  February 2026  ·  8 min read

To stand at the foot of the Bec des Rosses and watch a skier drop into its near-vertical north face is to understand freeride in a way no screen can convey. The Freeride World Tour is the pinnacle of big-mountain skiing and snowboarding — a season-long circuit in which the world's best riders are scored on the lines they choose down some of the most fearsome unpisted faces in the world. It is sport at the very edge of what is possible, and its finale at Verbier is one of the great spectacles in winter. For those who love the mountains, there is no better event to witness.

What the Tour Is

The Freeride World Tour brings together the elite of big-mountain skiing and snowboarding across a handful of stops each winter, typically beginning in the resorts of North America and the Alps and building towards its legendary conclusion. Riders are not racing the clock; they are judged on a holistic assessment of their descent — line difficulty, control, fluidity, air and overall command of terrain that has no markers, no nets and no second chances. The faces are wild, the consequences real, and the margin between a winning run and a fall is heartbreakingly thin. It is a discipline that rewards equal parts courage, creativity and mountain judgement.

The Verbier Xtreme

The Tour's spiritual home and grand finale is the Verbier Xtreme, contested on the Bec des Rosses — a 3,223-metre pyramid of rock and snow whose north face pitches to over fifty degrees and is studded with cliffs and exposure that would give any mountaineer pause. That the world's best ride it at speed, with style, is scarcely believable until you have seen it. The natural amphitheatre opposite the face, at the Col des Gentianes, fills with thousands of knowledgeable spectators who gasp and roar as each rider commits to their line. The atmosphere is unlike any other event in skiing: reverent, electric and deeply communal.

"You watch the first rider drop and you simply cannot believe what the mountain allows a human being to do. Then the next one does something bolder."

How to Be There

Watching the Verbier Xtreme well takes a little planning, because the event runs on a weather window — it is held on the best day within a waiting period, so flexibility is essential. We base spectators in Verbier itself, with a luxury chalet or five-star hotel as your home for a week that combines the event with your own skiing. On competition day, we arrange early lift access to the Col des Gentianes viewing area with the right vantage and the right hospitality — warm, fed and perfectly placed as the action unfolds across the valley.

The genius of a Freeride World Tour trip is that the event is only half of it. Verbier is the freeride capital of the Alps, and the same terrain the professionals are scored on is, in more forgiving corners, open to you and a guide. We pair the spectacle with guided off-piste days matched to your ability, so you return home having not just watched the best in the world but ridden the mountain that made them.

When It Happens

The Verbier finale typically falls in late March or early April, at the close of the Tour's season, when the days are long and the high-alpine snowpack is at its most settled. Exact dates move with the competition calendar and, ultimately, the weather — which is precisely why a trip built around it benefits from the flexibility and on-the-ground knowledge we provide. Dates are confirmed on enquiry as the season's schedule is published.

How Mason Events Plans It

We combine the Freeride World Tour finale with a full luxury alpine week — chalet or five-star hotel, lift passes, viewing-day hospitality and guided freeride skiing tailored to you. It is the ultimate trip for anyone who loves the mountains at their most dramatic. Enquire with our team to be there for the next Verbier Xtreme.

Snow Polo & the Frozen Season at St Moritz

By The Mason Events Team  ·  January 2026  ·  9 min read

Each winter, the frozen lake at St Moritz becomes the stage for the most glamorous season in the Alps. When the Engadin's great lake freezes solid enough to bear the weight of grandstands, horses and even racing cars, this storied resort transforms its sheet of ice into a series of events found nowhere else on earth — polo played on snow, thoroughbreds racing across the frozen surface, and a concours of the world's rarest automobiles. It is winter as theatre, played out at 1,800 metres against a backdrop of larch forest and snow-laden peaks, and it has drawn the world's most discerning travellers to St Moritz for over a century.

Snow Polo

The headline act is the Snow Polo World Cup, contested on the frozen lake by international teams over a long weekend in late January. Polo on snow is a spectacle quite distinct from its summer cousin — played on a compact, boarded pitch of packed snow with a larger, brightly coloured ball, it is fast, physical and astonishingly skilful, the horses thundering across the white surface in a spray of powder. Around the pitch rises a temporary village of hospitality pavilions, champagne terraces and brand marquees, and the crowd is as much a part of the occasion as the polo: this is one of the great gatherings of the Alpine winter social calendar.

We arrange VIP hospitality trackside — heated pavilions with full dining and an uninterrupted view of the play — combined with the rest of the St Moritz experience: the skiing, the tobogganing, and the legendary après of the Engadin.

"Only at St Moritz could a frozen lake become the most glamorous address in the Alps for a fortnight each winter."

White Turf: Racing on Ice

Across three Sundays each February, the lake hosts White Turf — horse racing on the frozen surface, a tradition dating back to 1907. Thoroughbreds gallop flat-out across the ice, and in the unique discipline of skijoring, riderless horses pull skiers behind them at breathtaking speed, a sport found nowhere else in the world. It is exhilarating and faintly surreal, watched by an elegant crowd from grandstands set directly on the lake. White Turf pairs beautifully with a stay in resort, and we secure premium enclosure access and hospitality for race days.

The ICE: A Concours on the Lake

The newest jewel in the frozen season is The ICE — the International Concours of Elegance — which presents some of the rarest and most significant motor cars in the world on the ice of the lake, driven (yes, driven) across the frozen surface against the Engadin backdrop. For those who love beautiful machinery and spectacular settings in equal measure, it is unmissable: a meeting of automotive history and Alpine drama that could exist nowhere else. We arrange access and the surrounding hospitality as part of a wider St Moritz itinerary.

Where to Stay

St Moritz is the birthplace of Alpine winter tourism, and its grand hotels are legends in their own right — Badrutt's Palace, presiding over the lake since 1896, and the Kulm Hotel, where winter tourism was effectively invented on a wager in 1864, chief among them. These are not merely places to sleep but central characters in the St Moritz experience, their bars and dining rooms the beating heart of the season. We secure the best rooms and tables, and build the surrounding days — skiing the Corviglia, lunch at a mountain hut, the Cresta Run for the brave — into a complete winter itinerary.

When to Go

The frozen-lake season runs from mid-January to early March, conditions permitting — the Snow Polo World Cup in late January, The ICE in late January or February, and White Turf across February's Sundays. Because every one of these events depends on the ice and the weather, exact dates shift year to year and are confirmed on enquiry as the calendar is set. The reward for a little flexibility is a winter experience without equal anywhere in the world.

How Mason Events Plans It

We build the St Moritz winter around whichever spectacle draws you — snow polo, racing on ice, or the concours — with VIP hospitality, a grand-hotel stay, private transfers and your own skiing woven through. Every package includes flights, transfers, five-star accommodation, event hospitality and an on-call concierge. Tell us which weekend calls to you, and we'll handle the rest.