Yet after paying more than £100,000 to attend David and Victoria Beckham's charity "World Cup" party, businessman Dave West says he was subject to such an unwelcoming pre-party briefing that he chose to boycott the event.
The party, "Full Length and Fabulous", took place on Sunday at the couple's mansion in Sawbridgeworth, Hertfordshire, and raised money for charities including Unicef and the Prince's Trust, as well as to providing a pre-World Cup send-off to Germany for the England football team.
Mr West, 62, who owns the central London nightclub, Hey Jo, and a lap-dancing venue in London, said after winning the fierce bidding for the two tickets in an online auction on Friday, he was instructed to sign a confidentiality agreement, as well as being banned from handing out his business cards to guests or taking his mobile phone and camera to the party.
"The confidentiality agreement would mean that, had I signed it, I couldn't talk about the party even to my friends," he said.
He was told that he would have to observe the "black tie" dress code, even though it was blatantly ignored by some guests at the party. The cricketer Freddie Flintoff attended the party wearing a black shirt and no tie, while the Arsenal and England footballer Ashley Cole wore his jewellery but no shirt.
The final humiliation, said Mr West, came when he received a "very patronising phone call from the Beckhams' entourage".
"At 8pm on Saturday evening, I got a call from someone who claimed he was David Beckham's right-hand man, and it was not a good conversation, it was a dictation of the terms by him in a very arrogant tone.
"He was talking down to me. It was as if they were doing me a favour. The conversation lasted about five minutes but it made me feel very unwelcome and I knew I wasn't going to go," he said.
Mr West said he was told twice in this conversation that it was a "black-tie" affair, even though he usually preferred to wear a pink suit and tie to charity events.
"This man also said it was a 'non-commercial' party so I couldn't have contact with other guests, or hand out visiting cards. I was told not to take a camera or my mobile phone. Even though that's stated on the tickets, I would not have bought them had I known about these rules beforehand," he added.
Mr West, who made his name selling cut-price alcohol to booze-cruise tourists in Calais, is well acquainted with publicity. He is to be a subject of a BBC2 documentary on self-made businessmen, called View from the Top.
And as a fan of the Beckhams - he met Victoria at a charity function in Monte Carlo, and spoke to her about his car registration plate, which is DAV1D - he had wanted to win the auction, although he had not originally anticipated bidding more than about £20,000.
He said after buying the ticket, he was going to "surprise" a "titled" female friend by inviting her. While he did not feel the £103,000 which he paid for the tickets was a huge amount of money, he said the experience had left him smarting. "I can't form an opinion of the Beckhams because I don't know if the way I was dealt with was their doing or not. All I know is that it's easier getting into St James's Palace, and I think David [Beckham] sometimes forgets where he comes from. I can't believe any other guest at the party would have turned up if they had had the same treatment," he said.
He said he would honour the terms of the sale and pay for the tickets, which would be stuck on a wall in his nightclub, along with a note telling the story.
A spokeswoman for the Beckhams was unavailable for comment.
The Beckhams' party had a star-studded guest list including the footballer Wayne Rooney and his fiancée Coleen McLoughlin, James Brown, the Duchess of York, Christian Slater, Ozzy and Sharon Ozbourne, and the Tory leader David Cameron.
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