The hottest ticket before the Super Bowl might not even be FOR the Super Bowl.

There are going to be more than 63,000 seats available for the big football game played at Ford Field on Feb. 5, but the capacity will be much more limited at those celebrity-laden parties that will dot the Detroit landscape the week before Super Bowl XL. As a result, there has been a growing problem with counterfeit tickets.

That's an interesting problem because, at many of the most prominent parties, there aren't any tickets.

"There are no tickets at all," said Lewis Kay, the publicist for the Maxim party. "People are scalping tickets and it's completely false. We don't want people to get ripped off. We're trying to get the word out there to everybody we can: Don't try to buy a ticket."

While some magazines like Sports Illustrated and Playboy started the party craze, Maxim leaped onto the scene six years ago and stole the show. Because of the high-profile celebrities and athletes -- not to mention the beautiful women -- Maxim has become one of the premier parties of the week.

"For the lack of a better term, it's a Hollywood party at the Super Bowl," Kay said.

This year, the Maxim party will be held the night before the Super Bowl at the Detroit Orchestra Hall.

"I'm going to sound like such a publicist, but it's not just free booze and loud music," Kay said. "Every party is themed. In San Diego (in 2003), we took over a warehouse and made it a mini-city. Last year (in Jacksonville), it was a huge rock wedding. This year, it's a rock opera. People like to see if we can out-do ourselves from the past years."

The Sports Illustrated party, which has been a staple of the Super Bowl for decades, is also trying to out-do itself. This will be the third consecutive year that the focus of the party will be bikinis and, unfortunately for the adoring public, it's also an invitation-only party.

"It's called `The SI Super Swimsuit Party, presented by Budweiser,' " said publicist Rick McCabe. "It's the kickoff for our swimsuit issue, which comes out 10 days after the Super Bowl."