Region's nightclubs hindered by design flaws

Dubai's Cirque Du Soir club manager Sam Razaghi said he was involved in the club's design from the start

Nightclub interior designs in GCC often fail to provide adequate functionality, according to operators speaking at the Caterer Middle East Bars & Nightlife Forum held in Dubai earlier this month.

“Dubai is the playground for interior designers. It’s amazing what they’re doing but they need to understand the hospitality side of it. A room needs to be functional for a great bar or nightclub,” said Dubai’s Cirque Du Soir club manager Sam Razaghi.

“A lot of operators allow the interior designers to come in and do what they do then afterwards try to do second renovations; build a bar and try to make the venue into somewhere that can make money,” he added during a panel discussion entitled ‘Crafting your outlets unique value proposition for your clientele’.

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Razaghi said people with a “deep understanding of hospitality” needed to present in nightclub design from the beginning, adding that Dubai clubs could learn from the design of those in Las Vegas.

“I started in Las Vegas as a professional bartender. I see a lot of beautiful places in Dubai that are not nightclub settings. In Vegas they build the money-making aspects of the room, and then they bring the design to it.”

Razaghi claimed to have been involved from the beginning in the design of Cirque Du Soir: “It’s different as we have stages, people hanging from ceilings, podiums and so on — I was there seeing the interior designers forgetting to put a bar.’

However, fellow panelist and general manager of the popular Bushido Nicolas Budzynski said he was only appointed 10 months after the opening of the Bahrain venue.

“I definitely agree it needs to be a team effort, we have a beautiful venue – open roof, 2 m long bar and when you look at picture you realise it looks exciting, unique. But when you see customers you realise people don’t look comfortable, the bar is up near the staircase, it should be the centre piece. We have 550 seats, in this market how do we fill that. It’s the designer who has to work with operator,” explained Budzynski.

He added that more communication between designer and operator was needed: “The designer might not always know the requirements of operator”.