The Show Must Go On

Time was when a holiday, a package holiday, meant the mere basics - flight, transfer, room and optional meals and a dodgy rep. Not anymore it doesn't, and one of the developments has placed the onus firmly on the hotel. It is the hotel's entertainment. The hotel may not offer 24-hour party people, but it is coming damn close. Kids' clubs, fitness sessions, all manner of games during the day and then the climax - the evening show. And it is no exaggeration to talk in terms of a "show". For the hotel is no longer really able to get away with some rather amateurish and low-key, low-grade cabaret; the hotel has entered the world of real entertainment, of the professional, the rehearsed and the not necessarily cheap. In part, it is perhaps a response to the reputation of places such as Son Amar and Pirates; in the north, there is nothing to compare, and so the hotels are filling the void if not as spectacularly but then sufficiently to satisfy the ever-more discerning and demanding of punter - the tourist.

Cast your eye around the Internet, and it is full of questions about entertainment at this or that hotel, in this or that resort. The evening's ents have ceased to be a bonus, they are central to the holiday, as central as the room, the beach and the bar. The demand for not just entertainment, but good entertainment has forced the hotels to keep pace. In my youth, I can vaguely recall an evening's do at a hotel in Hastings, so forgettable I have forgotten it other than the fact that it took place; I can also recall an evening out at The Winter Gardens in Bournemouth and the bill featuring, among other treats, Mrs. Mills; I can also recall a few years later staying at a caravan site on the Gower coast and the site's club having a three-piece of drummer, organist and the drummer's 12-year-old son on trumpet. Naff couldn't even begin to describe any of these.

Mercifully, this has all changed. But it has come at a price. Quite how much I was unaware of until speaking with Jay who arranges entertainment in a number of hotels and is based at the Delfin Azul in Puerto Alcúdia. I won't reveal the figures, but take it from me, the new sound system at the Delfin has cost a pretty centimo, while the payments to performers on a typical two-week turnaround is also far from insignificant. It's the price the hotel pays for attracting and retaining customers, not only during their stay but in subsequent years. And there are people who come back precisely because of the shows.

The likes of the Delfin offer a variety of shows - rock, tribute and the rest. Sea Club is doing "Hairspray". These are just a couple of examples. Many hotels have gone down similar paths, but what is still lacking is the awareness that, in many cases, you don't have to be a guest to go in and enjoy the shows. The Delfin is promoting itself as having a "show bar". You can go in there for free, and pay only for drinks. Sea Club you can also go into. The Show Garden at Bellevue has long operated on this basis, but no one much away from Bellevue knows of its existence.

This is all-round family entertainment stuff. It's easy, perhaps, to be a bit cynical. The entertainment is all a bit West End without the west or the end; it's all a bit middle of the road. But so be it. It happens to be what a lot of folk want. That the likes of Shamrock (regularly) and Vamps and La Birreria (occasionally) serve up music more in the raw is all to their credit, and they fill a void, but for the average family tourist groups, the hotels are giving them ever-better and ever-more professional entertainment.


QUIZ: Yesterday - Millie (Small). Today's title - who? Easy. And then it would be - "we will, we will ..."

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