The Pines Party is an incredibly personal passion project for Guy Smith, Robert Montenegro, and the entire team at the Free Radical Design Group.  Guy started working on the Pines Party as a mere lighting operator / programmer for the event on the beach in 1999, when he worked for the legendary night club, The Pavilion.  The party was a community fund raising event for the Fire Island Pines and was held on the beach of the National Seashore.  Guy and Robert (as Guy Smith Productions) continued to be involved year after year as consultants, technical designers, or directors of the even for the next 15 years, on and off, until the event ticket sales died out and became too expensive to continue to produce for the non-profit which conceived of it.  

 

That year when FIPPOA, the organizing entity decided to cancel the next year’s Pines Party, was 2013.  Guy Smith came to FIPPOA and proposed to produce it the following year, with the condition that his team conceived of the entire production, from theme, to promotion, to production, to music, in conjuntion with the existing board of the non-profit.  If the event failed to raise $50,000, then FIPPOA could keep all of GSPltd’s production fees.  That year, the event raised $100,000, securing their place as producers for the following year.  To date, the event has raised greater and greater revenue each year, with the beach party cresting over $200,000 for 2016 and 2017.  It is regularly hailed as ‘otherworldly’ and spectacular, causing the revelers to enter a magical world that makes them forget they are on the beach they see every day.  The event attracts nearly 3000 people from the community and around the world.