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Wan LixinOpinion deputy editor of Shanghai Daily
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'Caged' dancers and lots of bling
By Sam Riley |
April 23, 2010, Friday
|
Print Edition
Print Edition
THE newest venture from the people behind Bar Rouge, Game*Bling, takes a dash of Las Vegas razzmatazz and stirs in a big dollop of ostentation to attract a crowd that likes to flash their cash and baubles.
If the global financial crisis led to a certain circumspection when it came to showing off one's bling, there seems to be no such reservations for this latest addition to the local nightclub scene.
Dancing girls shadow box in an elevated boxing ring and caged pole dancers are all part of what the Game*Bling Operations Director Kyle Sun likes to call the club's "carnival" atmosphere.
"You can see performers and dancers, we have a giant martini glass and there are beauties handing out lollypops and dancers in cages - it's a happy carnival atmosphere," Sun says.
Sun is also the chief operating officer of the Visual Oriented Ltd who first launched Bar Rouge in 2004 and also started Chinese restaurant Tan Wai Lou. They also started Mr & Mrs Bund with Paul Pairet.
Having attracted a large slice of the foreign drinking crowd at Bar Rouge, Sun says Game*Bling is an attempt to capture the Asian drinkers who like to take a group, book tables, buy bottles and be seen.
"If you go into a Chinese club you can see when they are having a fun time, they are opening bottles non-stop," he says.
"With Bar Rouge we have a more international crowd and we noticed a drop of about 30 to 40 percent of our business during the economic crisis. But if you look at the Chinese clubs, they didn't have this headache from the financial crisis."
Along with the bling and the dancers, the club also has an interesting take on the games commonly played at nightclubs in Shanghai.
The dice rolling is out and Sun has developed its own range of games that will keep drinkers entertained.
One is the arrow game, which is a take on the teenage spin the bottle-style game. Contestants write down tasks they want a person to do, the arrow lands on a person and he or she must perform the task.
There is also a lottery-style game in which small balls are filled with premium whisky and cognac. If a contestant's color ball is selected, he or she gets a free drink.
The club is located on the 20th and 21st floors of the Sail Tower on Hankou Road. Its roof top terrace has a 360-degree view of the skyline, including the historic Bund and across the Huangpu River to the Pudong New Area.
Ideal for large events, the roof-top terrace can take as many as 500 people but the floor below is a smaller room, divided into private VIP rooms.
The VIP rooms have as much as a 10,000-yuan (US$1,465) minimum spend and allow patrons to choose their own music by docking their iPod or to sing karaoke. The curtains can drawn back to reveal the party going on outside.
Sun says the club aims to increase crowds with visiting acts, which included Fatman Scoop, supposedly the world's No. 1-ranked MC.
Sun says they are also trying to get Fat Joe, who is well known in rap circles for his ongoing feud with rapper 50 cents and they are even attempting to get 1980s pop icon Boy George to Shanghai.
Game*Bling
Address: 20-21/F, 266 Hankou Rd
Tel: 6321-4949
If the global financial crisis led to a certain circumspection when it came to showing off one's bling, there seems to be no such reservations for this latest addition to the local nightclub scene.
Dancing girls shadow box in an elevated boxing ring and caged pole dancers are all part of what the Game*Bling Operations Director Kyle Sun likes to call the club's "carnival" atmosphere.
"You can see performers and dancers, we have a giant martini glass and there are beauties handing out lollypops and dancers in cages - it's a happy carnival atmosphere," Sun says.
Sun is also the chief operating officer of the Visual Oriented Ltd who first launched Bar Rouge in 2004 and also started Chinese restaurant Tan Wai Lou. They also started Mr & Mrs Bund with Paul Pairet.
Having attracted a large slice of the foreign drinking crowd at Bar Rouge, Sun says Game*Bling is an attempt to capture the Asian drinkers who like to take a group, book tables, buy bottles and be seen.
"If you go into a Chinese club you can see when they are having a fun time, they are opening bottles non-stop," he says.
"With Bar Rouge we have a more international crowd and we noticed a drop of about 30 to 40 percent of our business during the economic crisis. But if you look at the Chinese clubs, they didn't have this headache from the financial crisis."
Along with the bling and the dancers, the club also has an interesting take on the games commonly played at nightclubs in Shanghai.
The dice rolling is out and Sun has developed its own range of games that will keep drinkers entertained.
One is the arrow game, which is a take on the teenage spin the bottle-style game. Contestants write down tasks they want a person to do, the arrow lands on a person and he or she must perform the task.
There is also a lottery-style game in which small balls are filled with premium whisky and cognac. If a contestant's color ball is selected, he or she gets a free drink.
The club is located on the 20th and 21st floors of the Sail Tower on Hankou Road. Its roof top terrace has a 360-degree view of the skyline, including the historic Bund and across the Huangpu River to the Pudong New Area.
Ideal for large events, the roof-top terrace can take as many as 500 people but the floor below is a smaller room, divided into private VIP rooms.
The VIP rooms have as much as a 10,000-yuan (US$1,465) minimum spend and allow patrons to choose their own music by docking their iPod or to sing karaoke. The curtains can drawn back to reveal the party going on outside.
Sun says the club aims to increase crowds with visiting acts, which included Fatman Scoop, supposedly the world's No. 1-ranked MC.
Sun says they are also trying to get Fat Joe, who is well known in rap circles for his ongoing feud with rapper 50 cents and they are even attempting to get 1980s pop icon Boy George to Shanghai.
Game*Bling
Address: 20-21/F, 266 Hankou Rd
Tel: 6321-4949
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