The most-anticipated event with the largest gathering of stars in the country, ABS-CBN Ball 2025, was held last April 4 at Solaire Resort North in Quezon City. Through the years, the formal event has become synonymous with elegance, glamour, and sophistication while celebrating the best the Philippine fashion design has to offer through the gowns, suits, and accessories of the guests and VIPs. 

Solaire Resort North - Grand Ballroom | Photo capture from Nice Print

Back to the City of Stars

Solaire Resort North, as the Official Venue Partner of ABS-CBN Ball is quite like a homecoming for everyone involved. As a beacon of luxury in the heart of Quezon City, the City of the Stars, Solaire Resort North is the first and only five-star luxury integrated resort in the city, offering world-class spaces complemented by the renowned warmth of Filipino hospitality. It features expansive deluxe guestrooms and suites, meticulously designed with modern in-room features and bespoke amenities.

On being the newest home of ABS-CBN Ball 2025, Gregory Hawkins, acting COO of Bloomberry Resorts Corporation.

“This collaboration is a very important one,” he starts and shares that their large operation of more than 4,000 team members are all “so excited to host this event.”

“We’re very grateful for it. From our point of view, it’s helping to launch the vision of this property,” he says. “We’ve been open for about eight months now, and we’ve been received very positively, but this is a cherry on top—partnering with ABS-CBN and ABS-CBN Foundation is a wonderful thing to do, and a wonderful cause as well,” he adds.

For those who long to have a similar experience as the stars they saw on the carpet and on the livestream, here’s what Gregory says they can expect.

“So incredible restaurants, amazing hotel rooms, an array of art that haven’t been seen before, a dining area, and quite a popular casino, all done in a premium luxury way but very accessible for everyone,” he beams. “So we welcome everybody and look forward to seeing them here.”

You’ll understand all this and more when you have a chance to visit Solaire Resort North. Even their Deluxe Rooms are quite generous, at 42 square meters, along with the other rooms. This is ideal not just for the celebrities who tried to fit their gowns, shoots, and glam teams into the different deluxe suites and other rooms, but also for the business and leisure travelers. That and its proximity to key offices and lifestyle destinations make it an excellent location for both work and play.

Gregory Hawkins likewise mentioned the vision of Solaire Resort North, and that is most apparent in their use of art. Truly impressive is the 2,000 carefully chosen artworks and unique pieces within the property! These are all around you, from hallways to the rooms, to restaurants, and more. These give a distinctive cultural and artistic flair to Solaire Resort North that is uniquely Filipino. These are assembled by the team of Manila-based gallery and creative production group Tarzeer Pictures and comprise various media: painting, photography, printmaking, sculpture, and even textiles. There’s Geraldine Javier’s flora series of monoprints, Bert Antonio’s acrylic, various Oliva D’Aboville textile pieces, among others. 

READ: 6 Reasons Why You Should Book a Staycation at Solaire Resort North Now 

A gastronomical experience

During the ABS-CBN Ball Live at the Red Carpet coverage of Metro, Chef Hylton Le Roux, the Culinary Director for Solaire Resort North, talked about the collaboration and the preparations that his team has done for the event.

“We are very very excited about this collaboration between Solaire Resort North and ABS-CBN. We do have about 35 to 40 chefs for this event. We have been tasting for maybe two weeks now… to make sure everything runs very smoothly,” he says.

He also talked about the theme: “Going with the theme of Brighter Together, we really worked very hard to get back into the theme of working together with ABS-CBN and Solaire Resort North,” he adds.”

But more than that, coming up with this gastronomical experience is quite a logistical feat: crafting a dining experience for hundreds of celebrities and VIPs, blending the communal chaos of Chinese lauriat with the elegant precision of Russian-style service, while keeping up with the many guests.

In his interview for Metro.Style, Hylton acknowledged the high-wire act of choreography and flavor paired with the demands of social media. “The stars will take pictures,” he says, “we have to make sure every dish looks as good as it tastes,” he adds.

But worry not; even if you won’t get to recreate the menu during that night, you’ll know that in every banquet at Solaire Resort North, you have a similar team of culinary experts all working to provide the same kind of careful service. There are also a lot of other outstanding dining experiences you can try, 14 restaurants, including favorites like Red Lantern (Chinese), Lucky Noodles (casual Chinese) Yakumi (Japanese), and Finestra (Italian Fine Dining), as well as a range of casual dining choices in the food court and other locations.

Beyond the red carpet

This year’s dress code was Spring Formal and this was communicated all throughout the facilities, but perhaps what’s interesting is how the unique interiors of Solaire Resort North all blended in perfectly with the event. Starting in the lobby, where the stars were either dropped off on the driveway or walked across “The Mangrove” by Nikolas Weinstein, a massive sculpture of elegantly intertwined glass and steel that creates a luminous fragmented obelisk. 

The stars, flanked by their adoring fans separated through the logistical ministration of the highly prepared and competent Solaire staff—walked underneath these lit orbs as they made way to the gallery where there were interviews inside the Metro Lounge and the Press Area before being led up to the fifth floor.

And while there was much action on the banquet floor where the red carpet, booths, and the ballroom were all located, the entire Solaire Resort North provided delightful spaces for the ABS-CBN Ball guests, the press, and even the fans.

In Metro’s fashion film, The Garden of Belo, they took some of the stars across different areas in the hotel, including the outdoor garden area beside the pool. And while the stars in our video played a game of hide and seek at night, similarly, you won’t find a lack of places to explore: from the outdoor pool with cabanas and the nearby waterpark. If we had more players in hide-and-seek, we would have headed also to the specialized Kids Club, or the fitness center, and the pickleball court.

And while after the ball, all the decorations came down after midnight, the little parties head out in different locations, while the stars, back in their rooms, removed their makeup—everyone, and I mean everyone, who watched the livestream, or commented on the outfits of the celebrities, or those who brought their banners and mobile phones in the lobby as they waited for a chance to see their favorite star in person—all of them will remember this special moment in April, when the stars all came together, brighter, in Solaire Resort North.

For more information, visit Solaire Resort North's official website, or follow them on their Facebook and Instagram accounts.