Smashbox Studios

Smashbox is great! Very friendly staff very homey comfortable feel yet very professional and the café is amazing! They serve Intelligentsia coffee! And the barista is the bestttt! 5stars all the way.
They also have courtesy valet! ;)

The place is beautiful. The staff: The girls are half wits and the dudes are all tired rednecks.

My company often books Smashbox for our photo shoots, so naturally, I tend to spend very long days here. I can’t speak to the cost, but I can imagine its anything but cheap.
Nice spaces, good service. Love that theres a coffee bar and that i’ve never had trouble parking. Close to downtown Culver City which has lots of lunch options and stores like Target and Trader Joes in case you need that random item you forgot.

Love this venue for special events… parking is a pain (even valet), though. Have been here for LA Fashion week shows and even an oldie but a goodie – Dressed To Kilt, celebrating Scottish fashion. Always a good time and room enough for parties and a show.

i volunteered for la fashion week. i saw the agent provacateur and kara saun show. it was fun! i just don’t think its as highly regarded as ny fashion week. its kind of a joke compared to it. you have the likes of lauren conrad and nicky hilton showing here. ew lmao.

Got my make up did by a fabulous Smashbox artist following the Ashley Paige show.
Got my liquor on before, during, and after the Ashley Paige show.
Got my nicotine on following the Ashley Paige show.

Came here tonight for the Nicky Hilton fashion show. This venue is overall very small. I guess im used to Magic convention style shows. Valet really takes forever and cost me $ 15. The upside was open bar, and free smart water! Yay! This place was full of douchebags, pretending to be in the industry. So much for fashion week LA! I did get a free smashbox bronzer. Paparazzi to the max.

Now I understand why Unilocal have a separate listing for the Unilocal Elite event and for the venue of the event.
Smashbox studios is strictly a venue for various functions, shows, exhibits, and other photo/​film shoots that taken place at various days and at all hours.
When I first stepped into this 2400 square feet open space of a studio, I was amazed how massive vast of a space with all sort of potentials can be done at this place.
A few years back, I attended the invitation from Olympus America in introducing their new lines of products. What happened was in that Olympus has set up three different stages of photo shoots in three different area of the studio. It was so big of a space, they can accommodate about 50 people at each studio area of those particular fashion shoot. Olympus just wanted vendors, retailers, and others associated with photographic industries to test out their camera at each photo shoot.
I had came back a few more times because of different visits to particular big photo shoots. It seemed like commercial photo shoots or big fashion photo sessions tends to be the type that would rent a day to shoot here. You can also get the idea that an art gallery exhibit can be shown here because of the vast floor space this studio can hold. It is a very high ceiling with wooden floor in an area they called it «light box».
There is also an area that is just plain color white in terms of wall and floor that is called «Soft box» which is tend to be the area for photo shoots or video filming.
Overall, it’s a nice venue with limited parking with street parking just outside of the fence of this warehouse like venue. It can be a little hard to find this place because it’s a little bit hidden behind with no huge attention attractor to let people know of this place unless a fashion show happened with throngs of people waiting to get in.
I don’t think it’s fair to rate this place because of a fashion show or because of other events that would have taken place. Also the valet parking or the catering that you might come across to this place is in charge by the organizers of the event and have nothing to do with the Studios itself.
Smashbox studios as stated above is strictly a venue that is rented or lease by the organizers of the events. Other amenities such as catering, booze, admissions, valet parking, merchandise selling are all done by the host of those said events.
For the review of the place itself, it get 5 stars from me. All the other events I have ever attended here always get 2 – 3 stars from me too, but I don’t hold the studio any grudge on that.
For the look of the place, check it out here:

LA Fashion Week is right now… this is where the shows are held every year. Everyone in the industry grumbles about having to drive to Culver City for the shows, especially before the area made a comeback… It is kind of out of the way for us that work on the other side of town, but the venue is pretty cool and you just make it a destination. Advice: don’t do valet, you’ll be waiting forever and there’s street parking to be found if you look. In the lobby lounge during the shows there are open bars, free magazines, people promoting products… So you can chill out there before or between shows. There are a few rooms for the different runway shows, look at the signs and ask the security guys if you’re confused. They aren’t super hardcore with the lists, so you could probably talk your way into a show from my observations.