It seemed like everyone I talked to on Friday was buzzing about the Saturday night launch party for this city’s newest glossy magazine, Seattle Metropolitan. And the buzz continued into Saturday morning, when the party received a splashy preview in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. I have to admit, I wanted to go check the launch out, and even had an offer of a VIP ticket from a friend. But then another friend called me from the Paramount, where the party was being held, and warned me away.

Turns out the six-figure bash, which according to the magazine’s publisher was meant to prove that the people of Seattle Metropolitan have what it takes to be “the tastemakers of the city,” didn’t go off so well. The friend who warned me away from the party sent this take on the evening:

Hard to tell whether the Seattle Metropolitan launch party last Saturday night reflected more poorly on the new magazine or on the denizens of Seattle.

The invite said “Space is limited,” and they weren’t kidding. But crowding isn’t necessarily a bad thing at a party; being deprived of food and drink is. And in that sense, the party was a bust. The biggest social activity of the evening was waiting in line. During the eight o’clock hour the Paramount looked like an enormous octopus, with tentacles of patient Seattleites waiting ridiculous amounts of time for a drink, then moving to another line to wait good-naturedly for some food.

Only in Seattle would these conditions have led to anything other than a riot. And in most cities an up-and-coming glossy magazine would get savaged by other media for treating their guests so poorly.

Seattle Metropolitan’s publisher, Nicole Vogel, said it best in a pre-party interview with the P-I: “If we can’t throw a party that makes people drop their jaws, with fantastic food and drink and music, then why should they rely on us every month?”

Answer? Judging by their launch party, we shouldn’t.