The collective shrug over a possible SAG strike gathered a few more shoulders today, with representatives for Hollywood's influential Party Planning Mafia acknowledging that no labor impasse (or recession, for that matter) will prevent it from restoring the Golden Globes afterparties to their long-dormant luster. To wit: Press conferences are out, and "plasma screen-outfitted water walls" are in! And that's just for starters.

Elsewhere at the NBC Universal party, expect jewels shipped in from sponsor Cartier and "lots of "metallics accented in black" — essentially recycling the elements that have been in storage since their canceled '08 fete, arrayed in a smaller space to help alleviate the isolation of lone network employees Jeff Zucker, Ben Silverman and an unidentified coat-check girl. Others yawned their own ambivalence about a looming work stoppage as well, asking the trade organ BizBash to kindly return with real strike news closer to the Jan. 11 awards ceremony:

Billy Butchkavitz, who produces and designs HBO's production-heavy fete said, "We're going forward as if nothing is going on. I kept asking [my clients] about it—and you never know with the Golden Globes people—but they're saying that nothing should affect [the party]."

In Style's party has a much earlier load-in—it begins shortly after New Year's Day—and the magazine had already installed subflooring before the 2008 party was scrapped. But its production team is overtly unconcerned. "We are going full-speed ahead on Globes production," said the magazine's event chief, Cyd Wilson. "If [SAG organizers] get the signatures [needed for a strike, the plans to walk out] wouldn't be completed in time for the Globes anyway."

We're not so sure about that; SAG has other tactics, too, and we wouldn't put it past the union's top-secret star chamber to send a succulent seared ahi tuna (and service for 10) to Wilson's crew some time soon when the party organizer goes missing, with the clipped lettering on hotel stationery reading, "Cyd Wilson plans with the fishes." We've seen much worse.