Overview VIPit is the hospitality area of the Houston Art Car Parade and the parade's biggest fundraiser. It fills Hermann Square in front of Houston City Hall, where the route circles the building, so guests watch more than 250 art cars roll past from shaded seats with food and drink included. Proceeds fund the Orange Show Center for Visionary Art, which produces the free parade, and its Art Cars in Schools program. On site Doors open at midday and the party runs through the parade. Houston restaurants and drink partners serve complimentary bites and cocktails from stations around the square, local personalities call the parade live, and kids get their own art activities. Children are welcome. Seating runs from individual tickets to tables for four or eight, shared and private grandstands and private luxury suite tents. Guests get reserved downtown parking and private restrooms. Audience Companies entertaining clients and staff, Houston families, arts patrons and Orange Show donors. Individual tickets cost a few hundred dollars and grandstands and suites run into five figures, so this is a paying, hosted crowd rather than the open street audience. Talent and Influencers Past grand marshals of the parade include Bun B, Carl Lewis, J.J. Watt, Dan Aykroyd and George Clinton, and the most recent pair were former Houston Dynamo player Brian Ching and The Suffers singer Kam Franklin. Local celebrities provide the live commentary heard across the square. Track record VIPit pays for the parade. It is the fundraiser that keeps Houston's largest free cultural event free. Grandstands, tables for eight and luxury suites sold out at the most recent parade. Brand presence A presenting partner names the VIPit area at City Hall and receives a co-branded swag bag and a full grandstand. A golf cart partner is branded on the carts used across the parade, and entertainment and food and beverage partners are recognized on the stage and the VIPit bars. Recent menu partners included Saint Arnold Brewing, JuiceLand, Tacodeli, El Tiempo Cantina, Home Slice Pizza and Chama Gaúcha.