LE BAL DE LA ROSE

Late March · Salle des Étoiles, Monte-Carlo · An Evening · Since 1954 · The Ball

Arranged by the Court

The princely family and the ball’s designer on stage before the Sunset Ball backdrop at Le Bal de la Rose, Monte Carlo — I · The Family

Dates: The 2027 dates are to follow
WhereSalle des Étoiles, Monaco
DressBlack tie
AdmissionOpen to the public
The weatherIn March Monaco reaches about 15°C by day and 9°C at night, and rain falls on about one day in seven.
In companyA member who means to go says so to the Secretary, and the Court seats its members together where the engagement allows.RSVP tells the Secretary that a member means to attend. Send passes the engagement’s name, its date and the address of its page to whomever the reader chooses, or, on a computer, copies the address; the Court itself sends and keeps nothing.RSVP

The Bal de la Rose is given at the end of March in the Salle des Étoiles at Monte-Carlo, and it opens the Monegasque year. Black tie, the Grimaldi family in attendance, and twenty-five thousand roses.

It is almost always credited to Princess Grace, and she had nothing to do with starting it.

Guests in black tie arriving along the red carpet beneath a painted rose canopy at Le Bal de la Rose, Salle des Étoiles, Monte Carlo — II · The Arrival

The Three Decisions

The ball was created in 1954 by Henry Astric, artistic director of the Société des Bains de Mer, which is the company that has run Monte-Carlo’s rooms since the 1860s. Grace Kelly was in Hollywood at the time and did not marry Rainier until 1956.

Astric made three decisions that first year, and all three have survived seventy years.

The first was the dance. 1954 was the height of the Latin craze, with the mambo and the cha-cha everywhere, and Astric put the waltz at the centre of the evening. It was out of fashion, and he chose it for that reason. The guests took to it at once.

The second was the flowers. Only roses, and twenty-five thousand of them. No other bloom has been used since.

The third was the music. He hired a hundred violinists, which tells you most of what there is to know about the man.

The Salle des Étoiles set for dinner before a themed stage set at Le Bal de la Rose, the Monte Carlo ball — III · The Room

The Foundation

Grace arrived two years after the first ball and changed what it was for. In 1964 she directed that everything the evening raised should go to the foundation that now carries her name, which works chiefly with children.

After her death in 1982 her daughter took the chairmanship, and the ball is presided over today by Prince Albert and Princess Caroline.

Since 1977 each edition has carried a theme, and since 1999 the theme has been a designer’s work. Karl Lagerfeld ran it for many years until his death in 2019, staging Cuba, Manhattan and London in the sixties inside one room on the Mediterranean. Christian Louboutin took it on afterwards.

The set pieces are fixed. A member of the family dances first. There is a raffle, and it is taken seriously, because a good part of the money comes from it.

Roses, candlelight and a cut-out of a Riviera façade among paper palms on a red-and-white striped table at Le Bal de la Rose, Monte Carlo — IV · The Roses

What to Know

Places are sold by the Société des Bains de Mer, on request by telephone or e-mail rather than online, and the ball fills; in recent years it has sold out and kept a waiting list. As of October 2026, the 2026 ball was €1,800 a person; the price for 2027 is to follow.

Black tie, and the room dresses to the theme within it. This is a couture audience and the dressing is the substance of the evening rather than an accessory to it.

The roof of the Salle des Étoiles opens. On a warm March night it is opened.

It is the first of the season rather than the last. The Red Cross Ball follows in the summer, and Monaco’s year runs between the two.

Questions

When is the Bal de la Rose in 2027?

The date of the 2027 Bal de la Rose is to follow. Monte-Carlo Société des Bains de Mer gives the ball every year in March, in the Salle des Étoiles of the Sporting Monte-Carlo; the 2026 ball, the seventieth, was held on Saturday 21 March 2026.

How much are tickets to the Bal de la Rose?

Places are sold by Monte-Carlo Société des Bains de Mer, on request by telephone or e-mail to its Rose Ball office rather than online, and the ball usually sells out. As of October 2026, the 2026 ball was €1,800 a person; the price for 2027 is to follow. The evening raises money for the Princess Grace Foundation.

What is the dress code for the Bal de la Rose?

The SBM gives the dress code as black tie and evening dress, with doors at the Salle des Étoiles opening at 8pm. The Court wears black tie.

What was the theme of the 2026 Bal de la Rose?

The seventieth ball, in 2026, took the theme Galaxy Rose Ball, chosen by the Princess of Hanover as President of the Princess Grace Foundation and designed by Christian Louboutin with Benoît Miniou. The Sporting Monte-Carlo was dressed as a space shuttle. The theme for 2027 is to follow.

Musicians in powdered wigs, silver masks and eighteenth-century gowns play strings, bass and drums on a lit stage before a spaceship-window screen (2026) — V · The Musicians

The Court

The Bal de la Rose is not the Court’s own. Places are sold by the Société des Bains de Mer and go early, and the Court seeks them on a member’s behalf and arranges the whole of the evening besides: getting there, where to stay, and the table afterwards. Monaco in March also holds the opening of the Riviera season, and a member may take the week rather than the night.

How one becomes a member is set out under Admission.