# The Most Valuable Things in the World Cannot Be Bought. They Can Only Be Felt > On the new global luxury, cultural diplomacy, a new generation of private society, and the art of creating evenings that change a person’s inner state In the world of luxury entertainment, almost eve… - Source: Belgium Crown - Canonical URL: https://belgiumcrown.com/article/the-most-valuable-things-in-the-world-cannot-be-bought-they-can-only-be-felt - Author: Anna Stukkert - Section: Business - Published: 2026-08-06T17:48:45.984Z - Updated: 2026-08-06T20:10:51.352Z - Tags: Maxim Berin --- On the new global luxury, cultural diplomacy, a new generation of private society, and the art of creating evenings that change a person’s inner stateIn the world of luxury entertainment, almost everything revolves around scale: major names, extraordinary budgets, guest lists, and the endless flash of cameras on the red carpet. Yet there are rare individuals who operate on an entirely different level — not through spectacle, but through the feeling that remains with a person hours, days, sometimes even years after the evening has ended.Maxim Berin is one of them.An international producer and founder of Berin Iglesias Art Holding, he created Big Art Festival at precisely the moment when the world began searching for a new language of luxury: one that is no longer ostentatious or performative, but quiet, refined, and deeply emotional. A world in which art ceases to be a decoration of life and becomes its architecture.Big Art Festival gala evenings take place at Rosewood Hong Kong during Art Basel, in the legendary settings of Courchevel and St. Moritz, along the coast of Portofino, in Monte Carlo, Dubai, New York, Porto Cervo, Forte dei Marmi, and many other destinations around the world.Among its guests are people accustomed to the very best the world has to offer: owners of international family offices, figures from private banking circles, heirs to royal dynasties, founders of global companies, investors, patrons of the arts, leaders of luxury brands, and those for whom cultural capital has long become more important than demonstrative status. It is an audience that has seen almost everything and therefore senses authenticity, refinement, and true taste with extraordinary precision.For many years, Maxim Berin has lived and worked in Monaco as a resident of the Principality, one of the world’s leading centers of luxury lifestyle, private capital, and international cultural diplomacy. In Berin’s world, there are no accidental details. The lighting.The music. The scenography. The rhythm of the dinner service.The seating arrangement.Everything exists as part of one carefully composed emotional score.“People don’t remember the programme of the evening. They remember how they felt inside that moment.”And perhaps this is Maxim Berin’s greatest talent: transforming an event into an emotional architecture of memory.Maxim Berin -Maxim, one has the impression that you are not working in the event business in the conventional sense, but rather creating entire cultural worlds with their own aesthetics, atmosphere, and philosophy. -That is probably the closest description of how I personally perceive my work.For me, an event has never simply been a concert, a dinner, or a beautifully organised evening. It has always been something far deeper. From the very beginning, I was interested not in the external side of an event, but in the inner emotional state of the person inside that space.What they feel in the first seconds as the doors open. How their mood shifts when the first notes begin to play. How lighting, music, the rhythm of the evening, and the energy of the people around them influence their emotions.Why in one setting a person remains merely an observer, while in another they begin to truly feel.I have always believed that true luxury is not about decoration or budgets. True luxury is an emotion that cannot be explained rationally.It is when, after the evening ends, a person carries away not just photographs on a phone, but an inner emotional state. Months later they still remember the feeling of happiness, beauty, and every emotion they experienced in that moment.Perhaps that is why I have never viewed my profession as part of the event industry in the traditional sense. I see it more as a form of fine craftsmanship, working delicately with atmosphere, emotional dramaturgy, and human memory.Everything else -logistics, staging, technical production, budgets  is of course important. But those are only tools.A true event begins at the moment when a person stops being simply a guest and becomes part of a carefully orchestrated emotional experience. -What you often speak about is what you call the ‘aftertaste’ of an evening. Why is it so important to you? -Because in the end, that is the only thing that truly stays with a person.Not the number of candles on the tables. Not the height of the floral arrangements.Not the cost of the décor.Not the names on the guest list.Not even the artist on the poster.All of that creates an impression for a single evening. But then a person returns home and is left alone with their inner feeling. And that feeling alone determines whether the experience was truly beautiful.I believe people rarely remember facts. They remember the emotional state they were in beside you.You may forget the music itself, yet still remember the chills during one particular song.You may not recall the dinner menu, but still remember the feeling of complete inner harmony. That is what I call the aftertaste.Today the world moves at an extraordinary speed. Information loses value almost instantly. Every day people consume thousands of images, events, brands, faces. Everything dissolves into one endless stream of visual noise. But emotion works differently. A real emotion remains in memory for years. Sometimes for a lifetime.And I think the luxury industry itself is now going through a profound transformation. Luxury used to be about demonstration: showing scale, impressing through excess, creating external spectacle. Today that no longer works the way it once did.Because a truly sophisticated person cannot be impressed by money alone. You can rent the finest hotel in the world. You can bring the most expensive artists. You can spend tens of millions on décor. But you cannot buy the atmosphere.True luxury today is the ability to create a very rare emotional state — a state in which a person feels internally happier, lighter, more alive.And when, long afterwards, they remember not the event itself but the feeling of happiness they experienced inside that evening, then everything was done correctly.” -Did your story begin with music? Without question. And honestly, I believe music shaped not only my professional path, but my entire perception of the world.My father is Maestro conductor Arkady Beryn, a man who devoted his entire life to music. I grew up surrounded by orchestras, rehearsals, tours, endless conversations about art, scores, sound, interpretation, meaning. In our home, music was never simply a profession. It was part of life itself.From a very early age, I saw not only the stage, but everything hidden behind it: the discipline, the tension, the emotional devotion, the absolute dedication to one’s craft. And I think it was then that I first understood that true beauty always demands immense inner work.My father taught me one very important thing: to listen not only to the sound itself, but to the pause between sounds.As a child, I did not fully understand what he meant. Later, I realised that it is precisely the pauses that create depth.In music. In conversation. In the architecture of an evening. In human relationships.I think the world today has become far too loud. Everyone is trying to speak faster, brighter, louder than everyone else. And against that background, the ability to feel a pause becomes almost a form of luxury.Perhaps that is why my projects place so much emphasis on atmosphere, rhythm, and the emotional breathing of a space. I have never loved excess.For me, true impact is born not from abundance, but from precision.From that very delicate sense of measure that is almost impossible to explain in words  yet impossible not to feel. -You are, after all, a professionally trained musician? -Yes, my first profession was as a saxophonist. And I think music will forever remain my first language for understanding the world.I studied at the Hochschule für Musik in Detmold, a very serious German institution that shapes not only technique, but a way of thinking. Then came the concerts, the tours, my own Piazzolla Classic Ensemble, recordings, festivals, constant travel, rehearsals — a life lived entirely inside music.It was an incredibly beautiful period of my life: vivid, emotional, filled with movement and a sense of freedom. One evening you are walking onto a stage in one city, the next morning you wake up somewhere completely different. You live inside the rhythm of applause, stage lights, airports, rehearsals, late-night conversations after concerts.And at some point, you begin to realise that music is far more than simply performing a composition.Gradually, I became more and more fascinated by the phenomenon of how art affects people emotionally.Why does one concert become a memory that stays with someone forever, while another disappears the moment the final note ends?Why does an audience sometimes applaud standing, yet emotionally the evening feels completely empty? And why, at other times, can a single pause, a single glance from an artist, or one almost silent note suddenly create something in the room that cannot be explained rationally?I think that was the moment I first understood that real art does not happen only on stage.It is born in the atmosphere. In the emotional state of the people inside the space.In the invisible energy between the audience and the performance.And that was also the moment when the role of musician alone began to feel too narrow for me.I no longer wanted simply to perform music. I wanted to create entire emotional worlds around it.I suppose that is where my path as a producer truly began. -When did you realise you wanted to build an international cultural business? -Probably the moment I understood one very simple thing: in the future, the most valuable currency would not be objects, but emotions.Today everyone speaks about the experience economy, but if we are honest, true luxury culture has always been built around exactly that. Never around possessions themselves.Because any object is valuable only because of the feeling it creates.And I think modern society is gradually arriving at this understanding. People no longer want simply to own things. Ownership itself no longer impresses anyone. Today everyone has seen everything.That is why I have always viewed cultural business not as part of the entertainment industry, but as work with human emotions, memory, and inner experience.Because art, music, atmosphere, beautiful spaces — at their very best — have the power to transform a person. Even if only for a single evening. And sometimes, one evening stays with you forever. -And yet, despite this deeply emotional philosophy, you have built a remarkably serious international structure. -Yes, and I suppose from the outside it all looks like a beautiful cultural story: festivals, world-renowned artists, private dinners, gala evenings, international collaborations. But behind that aesthetic there is an enormous and extremely sophisticated business system.Today, Berin Iglesias Art is a fully developed international ecosystem: concerts, world tours, festivals, luxury entertainment, artist management, private events, cultural collaborations, strategic partnerships with global brands, hotels, institutions, and art platforms.We work across different countries, different cultures, different audiences, and very different scales. Over the course of a year, we produce between two hundred and two hundred and fifty events worldwide -from intimate private evenings to major international festivals.And of course, behind all of it lies an immense amount of work: logistics, negotiations, contracts, financial architecture, teams, technical production, artist relations, crisis management. People rarely realise just how complex the high-level event industry truly is. In many ways, it is almost a form of fine jewellery craftsmanship.But the most interesting part is something else entirely.Building a large structure is difficult. Scaling a business is difficult. But ultimately those are questions of systems, discipline, experience, and the right people around you.What is truly difficult is scaling emotion. Because numbers can always grow.The number of events can grow. Even the level of artists can grow, to a certain extent.But preserving the feeling of uniqueness, preserving the atmosphere, preserving the emotional depth of an evening while the scale of the projects becomes larger and larger is where real artistry begins.I was always deeply afraid of becoming what I call a ‘factory of beautiful events.’ For me, that would feel like a professional failure.Because people always feel the difference between something that was truly created with soul and something that was simply well organised.That is why we pay such close attention to details, dramaturgy, the quality of the audience, and the emotional energy of a space. We never built our business around famous names or external scale alone.What always mattered most to me was something else entirely: that even years later, a person would remember not simply a concert or a dinner, but the emotional state they experienced that evening. And perhaps that is the most difficult part of what we do. -You speak a great deal about the quality of the audience. Is it truly that important to you? -Absolutely. In fact, I believe the atmosphere of an evening is created not by the décor, and not even by the artists. It is created by the people inside the space.You can produce an incredibly expensive event with world-famous names, extraordinary scenography, flawless service, exceptional gastronomy and still never achieve that elusive sense of magic for which everything was created in the first place.And then, on the other hand, you can gather one hundred ‘right’ people, and suddenly the entire space begins to breathe with a completely different energy.Maxim BerinIt is an incredibly subtle thing, but it cannot be imitated.The true atmosphere is always born from the inner culture of the audience itself: from the way people listen, the way they speak to one another, the way they experience music, respond to silence, respect the space and the energy around them.For me, the quality of the guests has always mattered more than the quantity.A long time ago, I realised that the luxury of the new era is no longer about the crowd. It is about the circle.That is precisely why the Big Art Festival was never conceived as a mass event. From the very beginning, it was designed as a carefully curated cultural environment.We have guests who travel with the festival around the world from Monaco to Dubai, from Courchevel to Hong Kong, from New York to Porto Cervo. And over time, an extraordinary international community has formed around the project, united by a remarkably similar perception of life.Owners of global companies. Figures from private banking circles and family offices. Investors and entrepreneurs. People from the world of art.Celebrities. Members of the international intellectual and cultural elite.But ultimately, what matters most is not status. Truly beautiful evenings are born only where people understand the value of nuance.And it is exactly there that a very special kind of energy appears, the kind that makes people return again and again.I think this is perhaps the new definition of luxury today: being surrounded by people who make you feel more inspired, more thoughtful, more emotionally alive.People beside whom you become deeper, more curious, more refined internally.That, to me, is real exclusivity. -So this is how the Big Art Society was born? -Yes, very naturally. At a certain point, I realised that people were no longer satisfied with simply attending beautiful events, even those at the highest level. The world had become oversaturated with experiences. Today, almost everyone has access to the best hotels, restaurants, concerts, and private clubs. Yet despite all of this, there remains a very deep sense of inner deficiency — a lack of true environment, meaningful intellectual exchange, and beautiful human energy.And it was precisely from that feeling that the Big Art Society gradually emerged.At first, it happened almost intuitively. Before and after Big Art Festival evenings, people simply did not want to leave. They would remain at the table late into the night, continuing conversations, meeting one another, starting new projects together, travelling together, returning to our events no longer merely as guests, but as part of a certain circle.And I realised something very important: Today, true luxury is not access to an event. True luxury is access to the right environment.To people beside whom you think differently, feel differently, live differently.Big Art Society was created around exactly this idea: to build an international intellectual and aesthetic community for a new era. Not simply a private club in the traditional sense, but a cultural circle of people who share a similar understanding of beauty, quality, and inner scale.But perhaps the most important thing is not even the status of its members. It is the atmosphere. The absence of ostentation. A genuine interest in remarkable experiences and encounters. An appreciation for the extraordinary events and conversations we create for them. And a very rare sense of inner substance in people.I think the world is gradually becoming tired of superficial networking. People are searching again for communities that offer not only usefulness, but meaning.And perhaps that is exactly why Big Art Society has become so deeply aligned with the spirit of our time. -What do ultra high-net-worth individuals buy today? -If I am honest, the wealthiest people in the world today are buying things that cannot be locked inside a safe. Silence. Privacy. Freedom from noise. True service.Rarity. Emotion. A beautiful intellectual environment. And above all, a sense of inner comfort among ‘their’ people.The world has changed enormously over the past few years. Luxury used to revolve around visible status: large logos, performative consumption, the desire to impress through scale. It was the era of visible wealth. Today, everything is the opposite.The higher a person’s level, the less desire they have to demonstrate anything externally. People who can truly afford everything are no longer searching for volume or spectacle. They are searching for quality of life in the most delicate and sophisticated sense of the word. Today, ultra wealthy audiences are not buying simply a dinner, a concert, or a beautiful hotel.They are buying the feeling of a world they want to belong to. A world where there are no random people. Where conversation matters more than demonstration.Where emotional intelligence matters more than status performance.That is why private experiences, intimate cultural circles, камерные evenings, and intellectual communities have become so valuable.Because true luxury today has less and less to do with possession, and more and more to do with emotional identity.People want to feel: ‘This is my world. These are my people. This energy feels natural to me. I want to return here again.’ -Why do your projects place so much emphasis on dramaturgy and direction? -Because for me, a truly great evening experience has always been much closer to cinema than to a traditional event.I believe a modern luxury event should unfold like a film, a carefully orchestrated emotional narrative in which every element has its own timing, rhythm, and meaning. There must be progression. Emotional transitions. Tension.A climax. And, ultimately, an aftertaste.People often assume that powerful impressions are created through something loud: a major artist, complex scenography, spectacular effects. But in reality, the most beautiful emotions are usually born in an entirely different way.It is very similar to music. If everything is played forte all the time, people stop hearing nuance. Real power appears only where there is breathing space, pauses, contrast, and inner dynamics.The same is true for the architecture of an evening. I am always deeply attentive to how the emotional atmosphere evolves throughout an event. How the energy of the room changes. The exact moment when guests begin to relax. When they start truly feeling one another. When that rare sense of complete presence suddenly appears. That is why I pay such close attention to the dramaturgy of space itself.How a guest enters the room. What they see first. When the music begins.How the lighting changes as the evening approaches its emotional climax.At what moment silence appears. When the artist should enter the stage.Because ultimately, that is the moment when an event stops being simply an event and becomes a true experience. -You work closely with Jorge Iglesias, the man who managed Julio Iglesias’ career for many years. How deeply did that partnership influence the development of Berin Iglesias Art? -Profoundly. And honestly, it has probably been one of the most important professional partnerships of my life.Jorge possesses an absolutely unique understanding of the international entertainment business. It is not simply experience with world-class artists, it is a rare kind of strategic thinking that has become increasingly uncommon today.He knows how to think for long distances. He sees not only a specific project, but the entire trajectory of a brand: its cultural weight, its reputation, the emotional perception people will have of it years later.Because a true international cultural brand is never built quickly.It cannot be created through marketing alone, through famous names or large budgets. It is always about time, consistency, the quality of decisions, and an exceptionally subtle understanding of the audience.I think our partnership became strong precisely because we shared the same core philosophy: our attitude toward quality.Neither of us was ever interested in creating projects simply for scale or noise. What always mattered to us was creating experiences with emotional depth and cultural aftertaste.And perhaps that is why Berin Iglesias Art gradually evolved into something much larger than an event company. Over time, it became an international cultural platform with its own aesthetic, philosophy, and audience.These things cannot be manufactured artificially. But they can be cultivated very delicately over time. And I think it was exactly at that intersection of music, strategy, taste, and human psychology — that the philosophy of Berin Iglesias Art was ultimately born.” -Tell us about your plans for the summer. It sounds like the season ahead will be incredibly intense. -Yes, this summer will be extraordinarily beautiful and deeply emotional. And what I love most is that every project has a completely different mood, aesthetic, and energy. We never try to repeat ourselves. It is very important to me that each event has its own atmosphere and leaves behind its own unique aftertaste.One of the brightest moments of the season will be the Big Art Festival in Samarkand with Craig David. And honestly, this is one of those rare projects where everything aligns perfectly: the history of the place, the energy of the city, the music, the summer air, the architecture, the people.Samarkand is experiencing a remarkable cultural renaissance today. It is a city with extraordinary historical depth that is once again becoming a point of international attraction. And hosting a major summer open-air event there with Craig David feels incredibly symbolic and beautiful.Then comes New York and that is an entirely different energy altogether. For the second consecutive year, we are producing a major event during FIFA Week. At that time, New York became an almost surreal concentration of international business, sport, entertainment, and media. And this year, we will have 50 Cent performing.I genuinely love when projects differ so radically from one another. It prevents the industry from becoming a conveyor belt.After that comes Monaco with Mumiy Troll, which is also a very special story.Monaco in the summer possesses its own unique magic. There is this extraordinary combination of Mediterranean lightness, old-money elegance, and a feeling of beautiful European freedom.And Mumiy Troll fits perfectly into that atmosphere. Their music has always carried something intelligent, romantic, atmospheric — slightly nostalgic, yet completely timeless at the same time.But perhaps one of the most ambitious and emotionally powerful projects of the summer will be Porto Cervo with Robbie Williams.And that, I think, will be a true wow moment. Porto Cervo is a very special place. To me, it is the pure essence of Mediterranean luxury beautiful, relaxed, effortless, yet at the same time incredibly elevated. During the summer, the international elite gathers there from all over the world.And Robbie Williams exists inside that energy perfectly.Because Robbie is not simply an artist. He is an enormous emotional force. He has an extraordinary connection with the audience. He can be both a global superstar and, at the same time, deeply human, ironic, charismatic, and completely authentic.And I think authenticity is something people value more than ever today.We are preparing a very cinematic concept for the evening. It will not simply be a concert, but a large-scale Mediterranean experience: the atmosphere of the Italian summer, extraordinary scenography, exceptional gastronomy, sunset over the sea, open-air music, beautiful people, incredible energy.But most importantly, it will create a feeling people are desperately missing in everyday life — freedom, lightness, happiness.Honestly, I believe the Big Art Festival in Porto Cervo will become one of the most talked-about private music events of the European summer.And projects like these remind me why I still love what I do after so many years. Because in the best moments, you realise that you are not simply creating an event. You are creating a memory. -And finally, after all the countries, projects, world-famous artists, and major events, what truly matters to you today? -Probably the ability to continue feeling. It sounds very simple, but in today’s world it is becoming increasingly rare.When you spend years working in the world of luxury, large-scale business, constant movement, flights, endless people, endless impressions, there is always a danger that one day you stop reacting emotionally to beauty. Everything risks becoming a mechanism, a schedule, just another project.And for me, it is very important that this has not happened.I can still feel chills from music. I can still stop because of the beautiful light at sunset. I can still be moved by the atmosphere of an evening or by a genuine conversation between people.And I think perhaps this is the greatest form of wealth: not losing your inner sensitivity. Because eventually you realise that life is not really made of contracts, status, or even success.And if my projects are able to give people that feeling even for a few hours then none of it has been in vain. Perhaps that is the true meaning of what I do today. --- Originally published by Belgium Crown. Free to cite with attribution and a link to https://belgiumcrown.com/article/the-most-valuable-things-in-the-world-cannot-be-bought-they-can-only-be-felt.