It was the days before decimalisation. I know this because it cost fourteen shillings, an astonishingly small amount even for what must have been either 1969 or 1970 and given the fact that they were already massive. They had embarked on a tour which took in some small college venues, and the prices reflected the fact. For fourteen bob at Farnborough Technical College, in whatever year it was, a young teenager and his mates got to see them. And to hear them, Azimuth Co-ordinator and all. They were of course Pink Floyd.
Around this time, the 14 or 15-year-old teenager got to see the Floyd twice for free. One occasion was in Hyde Park. The other was at the BBC's Paris Studios in Regent Street. John Peel walked along the queue outside, stopped to talk briefly. How many heroes could a teenager deal with on one evening. The Floyd premiered "Atom Heart Mother". Live on radio. They flunked the opening and had to start again.
Getting tickets for this latter performance was a random affair. You applied for any session. It just so happened that it was the Floyd. When the tickets arrived in the post, it was the nearest you got in those pre-interactive days to the "OMG, I don't know what to say" moments of Radio One on-air competitions to get tickets for the Big Weekend and such like: to see and meet, perhaps, One Direction.
By a twist of fate, these two worlds - old and new - have collided in their tribute form. Out of the blue, the Floyd - in the form of Minorca's The Other Side as part of their "Shine On Tour 2015" - will be turning up in the car park at Alcúdia's Hidropark on Friday, a peculiar twist in itself, given the similarity of Hyde and Hidro parks. Meanwhile, and close by, One Direction (the tribute version) will continue to smash the Delfin Azul on what now must be considered the farewell (possibly) tour.
It's not easy being a tribute act if the original disintegrates or ceases to be. When Zayn left, there was no escaping the fact that five needed to become four. It was the same when Jason walked out on Take That. In the pursuit of authenticity, the Oranges had to be crushed.
There is no such similar necessity with Pink Floyd. They ceased to be years ago. One of them is not of this Earth any longer (two if you include Syd), The Other Side have no need for pretence. They are a show. A tribute, yes, but an impersonation most definitely not.
It is this - impersonation - where the tribute edges blur. There are acts which, while clearly tributes for one thing or another, don't set out to impersonate. They are shows in their own right. Abba Angels, for instance. You would never have got Agnetha cracking jokes during an Abba set. Then there are those which do, well, perhaps take things a little too seriously. I once fell foul of a Take That Gary for having committed to print the suggestion that they should team up with the Robbie who was on the same benefit event bill and re-form. The Robbie seemed more than happy with the idea. The Gary, less so.
There again, it was understandable. The potential to mock - and this hadn't been such an attempt - is too simple. But if mocking occurs, it fails to take account of the hard work and professionalism of many a trib act. There are many good acts knocking around Mallorca. They are entertainers, the providers of shows. They are not the absurdity of the playback, the cheap miming option that has got entertainment a bad name.
The tribs are very much a feature of a Mallorcan summer. It wouldn't be quite the same without them. Of course, not everyone appreciates them, but when there exists a volume of work that is as well known as, for example Abba, and packaged professionally into a specific show, then what's there not to like?
This all said, it can depend on the volume of work and that part of it which forms the show, which brings me back to Pink Floyd. The Other Side's promotion is full of allusion to comfortably numb, to shine on. The name itself is an indication. "Dark Side Of The Moon" was an enormous commercial success, but it represented the transition from weird and wonderful Floyd to discernibly rock group Floyd. Will The Other Side engage in half-hour improvisations of "Set The Controls For The Heart Of The Sun"? I somewhat doubt it. There are the pre-Dark Side and post-Dark Side camps. I'm firmly in the former.
Nevertheless, there will be plenty who don't take such a fundamentalist view, and rightly so. Tributes, of whatever type, members departing or members passed away, are shows. For enjoyment. Shine on.
Showing posts with label Entertainment. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Entertainment. Show all posts
Wednesday, August 26, 2015
Tuesday, May 19, 2015
A Day Without Music
On the website - undiasinmusica.com - there is a thing to click on and play. So I did, and out of the speakers came the unmistakable orchestral introduction to The Verve's "Bitter Sweet Symphony". It wasn't the video, but had it been it would have shown Richard Ashcroft stomping along that street in Hackney with his determined and angry face, brushing everyone aside.
The choice seemed somewhat apt. For the music industry in Spain and Mallorca, these are times which are both bitter and sweet. Popular music has never been more popular, the opportunities to make it, thanks to technology, have never been so readily available, yet there are obstacles, and one of them is tax. This is why the musicians have their angry faces and are making gestures of placing their hands over their mouths. Tomorrow is "Un día sin música", a day without music. (Just out of curiosity, I'll check the website and see if there is anything to click on.)
The complaint that musicians and promoters have is against the 21% rate of IVA (VAT) that is applied to live performance. This is one of many areas of cultural activity which used to benefit from a reduced level of tax. When the Spanish Government, under firm instruction from Brussels, eyed up IVA as a means of making inroads into the national debt, it did so dramatically: live performance was one of various activities, not all of them cultural, which was clobbered by an IVA increase of 13%.
The anger that the IVA rises caused has been spread across all sorts of sectors. The tourist industry, which still has a reduced rate for many of its activities (hotels, restaurants, for example), had been under the impression that not only would it have escaped a rise in IVA but would have been granted a "super-reduced" rate. The Partido Popular had more or less promised this before the last election. Instead, the tourist rate went up from 8% to 10%, not down to the 4% super-reduced level. Though the hotel sector is generally supportive of the PP, it has felt let down and consistently refers to a broken promise and consistently demands that the super-reduced rate is applied. The Rajoy administration won't budge; it has ruled out any reduction.
The government has, pretty much since it introduced IVA increases in September 2012, dropped hints about possible reductions, but for the most part it has equivocated. One area of activity which has benefited has been the buying and selling of works of art: the rate was cut from 21% to 10%. As has been pointed out, however, the two principal "collectors" of art are banks and ... the government. To the disgust of many, the government has also been looking at giving preferential tax treatment to bullfighting (it also wants to make bullfighting something in the national interest and so protect it). As with other activities branded as "entertainment" by the finance ministry, IVA on bullfighting went up to 21% in 2012.
The day without music has been organised by nineteen associations which represent more than 800 businesses involved in Spain's music industry, and tomorrow a petition with over 500,000 signatures will be handed into Congress. The demand is for live music events to be treated in the same way as, for example, newspapers: to have a 4% super-reduced rate applied. Without such a reduction, it is claimed, there will be destruction or at least a less than bright future for live music performance. The slogan for the day is "reasonable and fair IVA for music", the organisers adding that the current rate is affecting international artists: they are holding fewer concerts in Spain or none at all on account of the increased cost of tickets.
One further cause of anger and annoyance is that clubs where live music is offered are obliged to charge the higher 21% rate of IVA on drinks than the 10% rate which applies to a bar where the entertainment might stretch to no more than a television being on in the corner. (I have to say that I wasn't aware that this was the case; I wonder how widely it is in fact applied.) But as the organisers of the day without music say, it is absurd to pay double (the IVA) for having a beer while listening to, say, a jazz group.
So, will there be any music tomorrow in Mallorca? Well, yes, of course there will be, but some of the major theatres will be quiet or not presenting live music. The Es Gremi centre in Palma, for example, has cancelled a Wednesday "night of legends" and will be showing a documentary instead. Trui won't he holding anything at its theatre and it has been prominent in lending its support to the campaign, as have some leading names in the Mallorcan music world, such as the rock singer Jaume Anglada.
The choice seemed somewhat apt. For the music industry in Spain and Mallorca, these are times which are both bitter and sweet. Popular music has never been more popular, the opportunities to make it, thanks to technology, have never been so readily available, yet there are obstacles, and one of them is tax. This is why the musicians have their angry faces and are making gestures of placing their hands over their mouths. Tomorrow is "Un día sin música", a day without music. (Just out of curiosity, I'll check the website and see if there is anything to click on.)
The complaint that musicians and promoters have is against the 21% rate of IVA (VAT) that is applied to live performance. This is one of many areas of cultural activity which used to benefit from a reduced level of tax. When the Spanish Government, under firm instruction from Brussels, eyed up IVA as a means of making inroads into the national debt, it did so dramatically: live performance was one of various activities, not all of them cultural, which was clobbered by an IVA increase of 13%.
The anger that the IVA rises caused has been spread across all sorts of sectors. The tourist industry, which still has a reduced rate for many of its activities (hotels, restaurants, for example), had been under the impression that not only would it have escaped a rise in IVA but would have been granted a "super-reduced" rate. The Partido Popular had more or less promised this before the last election. Instead, the tourist rate went up from 8% to 10%, not down to the 4% super-reduced level. Though the hotel sector is generally supportive of the PP, it has felt let down and consistently refers to a broken promise and consistently demands that the super-reduced rate is applied. The Rajoy administration won't budge; it has ruled out any reduction.
The government has, pretty much since it introduced IVA increases in September 2012, dropped hints about possible reductions, but for the most part it has equivocated. One area of activity which has benefited has been the buying and selling of works of art: the rate was cut from 21% to 10%. As has been pointed out, however, the two principal "collectors" of art are banks and ... the government. To the disgust of many, the government has also been looking at giving preferential tax treatment to bullfighting (it also wants to make bullfighting something in the national interest and so protect it). As with other activities branded as "entertainment" by the finance ministry, IVA on bullfighting went up to 21% in 2012.
The day without music has been organised by nineteen associations which represent more than 800 businesses involved in Spain's music industry, and tomorrow a petition with over 500,000 signatures will be handed into Congress. The demand is for live music events to be treated in the same way as, for example, newspapers: to have a 4% super-reduced rate applied. Without such a reduction, it is claimed, there will be destruction or at least a less than bright future for live music performance. The slogan for the day is "reasonable and fair IVA for music", the organisers adding that the current rate is affecting international artists: they are holding fewer concerts in Spain or none at all on account of the increased cost of tickets.
One further cause of anger and annoyance is that clubs where live music is offered are obliged to charge the higher 21% rate of IVA on drinks than the 10% rate which applies to a bar where the entertainment might stretch to no more than a television being on in the corner. (I have to say that I wasn't aware that this was the case; I wonder how widely it is in fact applied.) But as the organisers of the day without music say, it is absurd to pay double (the IVA) for having a beer while listening to, say, a jazz group.
So, will there be any music tomorrow in Mallorca? Well, yes, of course there will be, but some of the major theatres will be quiet or not presenting live music. The Es Gremi centre in Palma, for example, has cancelled a Wednesday "night of legends" and will be showing a documentary instead. Trui won't he holding anything at its theatre and it has been prominent in lending its support to the campaign, as have some leading names in the Mallorcan music world, such as the rock singer Jaume Anglada.
Thursday, June 28, 2012
The Entertainment Industry: Holidays
It was a sort of Joe Loss And His Orchestra. I'm pretty sure it was. Not that I paid a great deal of attention. I was more interested in my "Football Monthly" special devoted to the World Cup.
The year was 1966. The place was Hastings. The hotel was called the Yelton. The smell of beef or pork dinner clung permanently to the walls, the floors and the air of the hotel. Following dinner, there was rarely anything specifically arranged, except for the occasion when this band turned up in a function room dominated by thick velvet, to which the stale smell of lard was able to attach itself with particular efficiency.
Holiday entertainment did exist at the English seaside, but it was rarely in-hotel. The following year, the "summer of love" and hippies ringing bells around the streets of Bournemouth, I was dragged off to the Winter Gardens to see The Rockin' Berries and Mrs Mills. Things hadn't advanced greatly by the time I was able to go off for a drunken week with friends to the Gower and ended up at a caravan site where the evening's entertainment was a drums-trumpet-organ combo. If you've ever seen "The Inbetweeners" one where they go to a Caravan Club meet at Camber Sands, you'll realise that things still haven't moved on.
At some point in the history of holidays, entertainment ceased to be the only very occasional, the truly abysmal and the optional and became the regular, slightly less abysmal and obligatory. But when was it? It certainly wasn't on the first occasion I set foot on Mallorcan soil - 1969. There was no hotel entertainment and of what there was outside, the best that can be said about it was that no one had the bright idea to ship Mrs Mills out.
We used to make our own entertainment and all that. Yet, by the 1960s we were no longer making our own entertainment. Not in the normal course of events anyway. We were supplied with entertainment, and I use the word with caution, and it did of course comprise Gladys Mills, plonking away on the old Joanna before giving way to some absurd Scots singer in a kilt. Yep, that was entertainment, folks. On the telly. But whereas we had become used to not making our own entertainment, when it came to holidays, we were forced to, though it mainly seemed, where I was concerned, to consist of having to sit outside a pub with a lemonade and a bag of Cheeselets.
One can come up with any number of reasons as to why holiday entertainment has become the essential that it now is. But perhaps the greatest single reason is familiarity and the absence of the new. In 1969, it wouldn't have made a scrap of difference whether there were kids' club, in-pool aerobics, Abba, bingo, sports competitions or not. And of course there weren't, and nor were they necessary. There was something very new that was all that was needed, and it was the thing up in the sky.
Holiday, holiday to a Mediterranean resort that is, has lost its sense of the new. Holidaymakers expect things to be laid on. The appeal, for example, of an all-inclusive lies in part in its convenience and its lack of stress, and the all-inclusive, the origins of which are much older than you might think, was instrumental in fostering the contemporary demand for entertainment at hotels, regardless of the type of board. The charge levelled at the all-inclusive that it creates a holiday that could be anywhere ignores the fact that holidays in the Med of whatever sort could be anywhere. A trib act or an entertainment team is much the same whether it's Alcúdia or Antalya. Or is it?
The importance of entertainment for today's holidaymaker has been the subject of an investigation by the Spanish tourism journalist Ignacio Gil via the "Hosteltur" magazine's online community. The results of this are a 50-page eBook. A key message that comes out of this investigation is that entertainment is vital to a hotel's ability to differentiate itself, and given the homogeneity of holiday across the Med, differentiation is crucial. Entertainment is not a cost, it is an investment. It is not obligatory so much as it is absolutely fundamental. And this fundamental demand goes beyond the grounds of a hotel. It is one made of entire resorts.
Gil's report is timely, because it confirms much of the dynamic that is behind the transformation of Magalluf. This is largely one to do with entertainment. It confirms also the Balearic Government's thinking in allowing hotels to expand their range of offer; they will become all-inclusives without necessarily offering an all-inclusive board arrangement, and this all-inclusivity will be one with entertainment firmly in mind.
It's not too much of an exaggeration to suggest that holidays are no longer part of a tourism industry but of an entertainment industry. One can look back and think wasn't it all rather more exciting in the days when everything wasn't laid on, but then one can forget that what little that was laid on was some rubbish band or Mrs Mills.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
The year was 1966. The place was Hastings. The hotel was called the Yelton. The smell of beef or pork dinner clung permanently to the walls, the floors and the air of the hotel. Following dinner, there was rarely anything specifically arranged, except for the occasion when this band turned up in a function room dominated by thick velvet, to which the stale smell of lard was able to attach itself with particular efficiency.
Holiday entertainment did exist at the English seaside, but it was rarely in-hotel. The following year, the "summer of love" and hippies ringing bells around the streets of Bournemouth, I was dragged off to the Winter Gardens to see The Rockin' Berries and Mrs Mills. Things hadn't advanced greatly by the time I was able to go off for a drunken week with friends to the Gower and ended up at a caravan site where the evening's entertainment was a drums-trumpet-organ combo. If you've ever seen "The Inbetweeners" one where they go to a Caravan Club meet at Camber Sands, you'll realise that things still haven't moved on.
At some point in the history of holidays, entertainment ceased to be the only very occasional, the truly abysmal and the optional and became the regular, slightly less abysmal and obligatory. But when was it? It certainly wasn't on the first occasion I set foot on Mallorcan soil - 1969. There was no hotel entertainment and of what there was outside, the best that can be said about it was that no one had the bright idea to ship Mrs Mills out.
We used to make our own entertainment and all that. Yet, by the 1960s we were no longer making our own entertainment. Not in the normal course of events anyway. We were supplied with entertainment, and I use the word with caution, and it did of course comprise Gladys Mills, plonking away on the old Joanna before giving way to some absurd Scots singer in a kilt. Yep, that was entertainment, folks. On the telly. But whereas we had become used to not making our own entertainment, when it came to holidays, we were forced to, though it mainly seemed, where I was concerned, to consist of having to sit outside a pub with a lemonade and a bag of Cheeselets.
One can come up with any number of reasons as to why holiday entertainment has become the essential that it now is. But perhaps the greatest single reason is familiarity and the absence of the new. In 1969, it wouldn't have made a scrap of difference whether there were kids' club, in-pool aerobics, Abba, bingo, sports competitions or not. And of course there weren't, and nor were they necessary. There was something very new that was all that was needed, and it was the thing up in the sky.
Holiday, holiday to a Mediterranean resort that is, has lost its sense of the new. Holidaymakers expect things to be laid on. The appeal, for example, of an all-inclusive lies in part in its convenience and its lack of stress, and the all-inclusive, the origins of which are much older than you might think, was instrumental in fostering the contemporary demand for entertainment at hotels, regardless of the type of board. The charge levelled at the all-inclusive that it creates a holiday that could be anywhere ignores the fact that holidays in the Med of whatever sort could be anywhere. A trib act or an entertainment team is much the same whether it's Alcúdia or Antalya. Or is it?
The importance of entertainment for today's holidaymaker has been the subject of an investigation by the Spanish tourism journalist Ignacio Gil via the "Hosteltur" magazine's online community. The results of this are a 50-page eBook. A key message that comes out of this investigation is that entertainment is vital to a hotel's ability to differentiate itself, and given the homogeneity of holiday across the Med, differentiation is crucial. Entertainment is not a cost, it is an investment. It is not obligatory so much as it is absolutely fundamental. And this fundamental demand goes beyond the grounds of a hotel. It is one made of entire resorts.
Gil's report is timely, because it confirms much of the dynamic that is behind the transformation of Magalluf. This is largely one to do with entertainment. It confirms also the Balearic Government's thinking in allowing hotels to expand their range of offer; they will become all-inclusives without necessarily offering an all-inclusive board arrangement, and this all-inclusivity will be one with entertainment firmly in mind.
It's not too much of an exaggeration to suggest that holidays are no longer part of a tourism industry but of an entertainment industry. One can look back and think wasn't it all rather more exciting in the days when everything wasn't laid on, but then one can forget that what little that was laid on was some rubbish band or Mrs Mills.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Sunday, April 04, 2010
Watch My Lips: Playback and entertainment
"Cherry Blossom Girl" by the French duo Air. It's a lovely song, hippy-chic-retro-meets-electro. Or something like that. It featured female vocals. When the band appeared on "Top Of The Pops", there was no female vocalist to be seen. Jean-Benoît mimed it. Perhaps it was meant to be ironic. I thought it was excruciating, embarrassing and disrespectful of the audience.
We can probably all point to our least favourite examples of miming, otherwise known as lip-synching or as playback. Ah yes, playback. During the fair in Alcúdia last October there was an event called "Alcúdia Show Time". It featured, amongst other questionable treats, a competition for playback. Yep, they actually awarded prizes for miming. Nevertheless, this celebration of the truly naff notion of not actually being able to sing has some cultural redolence, if one can call tourist entertainment cultural - and some will. And this is because playback is increasingly being deployed in being passed off as entertainment.
The reason for this growth in shamtertainment is not difficult to understand. Compared with employing performers who can actually hold a tune, it is cheap. But it comes with a risk and a potential price. The clamour for entertainment has become deafening, and so might be the boos from tourists who feel they've been short-changed. And if not boos on the night, then boos on the forums, slagging off such-and-such a hotel or establishment for using miming. Bad PR on the internet really cannot be underestimated.
More than poor publicity, the use of playback both takes away employment from and undermines those who can perform - from the Elvises and Robbies to the participants in tribute bands and in shows. Playback is lazy in another respect. It is indicative of a lack of originality in the provision of entertainment. There is very little tourist entertainment that can be said to be original, though maybe that is the fault of the tourist who craves the familiar over the different. Rather like there is a tendency towards a tandoori or burger and chips, so the entertainment comes served in digestible Abba-sized chunks.
But wait. Why not develop some original shows? Ben, he of periodic mentions here, once appeared on stage with Noele Gordon. Yes, that Noele Gordon. I know what they could do. "Crossroads - The Musical". I can even offer a song - The Bachelors adapted for Benny: "smoile for me, Miss Doiyane". An Amy Turtle would not be hard to find; indeed I know someone who'd be a ringer, even if she'd need to work on the accent a bit. And there would even be scope for some local Spanish performer: the soap's original chef was Carlos. If not Crossroads, then Eldorado. It may have been considered to have been rubbish - I liked it - but some of the characters were recognisable: the alcoholic, the well-meaning wife who does the newsletter, the old trout fallen on hard times, the older bloke with the youthful totty, the posh bird, and the dodgy geezer who has something to do with boats.
You know, I think I'm onto something here. The expat musical. Can't think why, but I've got this catchy name for it. Sounds upbeat, sunny perhaps but certainly girly and ice-creamy. Milli Vanilli.
Here is Air's mime in which they also didn't even bother to have someone pretending to play the flute part:
QUIZ:
Yesterday - Jamiroquai, Steve Miller and DJ Space Cowboy.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
We can probably all point to our least favourite examples of miming, otherwise known as lip-synching or as playback. Ah yes, playback. During the fair in Alcúdia last October there was an event called "Alcúdia Show Time". It featured, amongst other questionable treats, a competition for playback. Yep, they actually awarded prizes for miming. Nevertheless, this celebration of the truly naff notion of not actually being able to sing has some cultural redolence, if one can call tourist entertainment cultural - and some will. And this is because playback is increasingly being deployed in being passed off as entertainment.
The reason for this growth in shamtertainment is not difficult to understand. Compared with employing performers who can actually hold a tune, it is cheap. But it comes with a risk and a potential price. The clamour for entertainment has become deafening, and so might be the boos from tourists who feel they've been short-changed. And if not boos on the night, then boos on the forums, slagging off such-and-such a hotel or establishment for using miming. Bad PR on the internet really cannot be underestimated.
More than poor publicity, the use of playback both takes away employment from and undermines those who can perform - from the Elvises and Robbies to the participants in tribute bands and in shows. Playback is lazy in another respect. It is indicative of a lack of originality in the provision of entertainment. There is very little tourist entertainment that can be said to be original, though maybe that is the fault of the tourist who craves the familiar over the different. Rather like there is a tendency towards a tandoori or burger and chips, so the entertainment comes served in digestible Abba-sized chunks.
But wait. Why not develop some original shows? Ben, he of periodic mentions here, once appeared on stage with Noele Gordon. Yes, that Noele Gordon. I know what they could do. "Crossroads - The Musical". I can even offer a song - The Bachelors adapted for Benny: "smoile for me, Miss Doiyane". An Amy Turtle would not be hard to find; indeed I know someone who'd be a ringer, even if she'd need to work on the accent a bit. And there would even be scope for some local Spanish performer: the soap's original chef was Carlos. If not Crossroads, then Eldorado. It may have been considered to have been rubbish - I liked it - but some of the characters were recognisable: the alcoholic, the well-meaning wife who does the newsletter, the old trout fallen on hard times, the older bloke with the youthful totty, the posh bird, and the dodgy geezer who has something to do with boats.
You know, I think I'm onto something here. The expat musical. Can't think why, but I've got this catchy name for it. Sounds upbeat, sunny perhaps but certainly girly and ice-creamy. Milli Vanilli.
Here is Air's mime in which they also didn't even bother to have someone pretending to play the flute part:
QUIZ:
Yesterday - Jamiroquai, Steve Miller and DJ Space Cowboy.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
Let's Play Risk - The closure of Riskal
"Too risky." Remember that catch-phrase? Some of you would probably prefer not to, but it came from the "nick-nick" time when Jim Davidson was any good, i.e. for a brief period when he first found fame. Too risky. Risk all. Riskal. Know what Riskal is/was? A grand centre for entertainment, culture, events and gastronomy, not far from Palma. It was the vision of one Joan Gelabert, ten years in the development at a cost of some 50 million euros. It opened in December 2008. In keeping with pretty much any new establishment, there was an inauguration, though Riskal's was in the stratosphere of the lavish. Among the guests was Miquel Nadal, then the tourism minister. Maybe that was a fate of bad omen. Riskal seemed to risk all, it was hugely ambitious. It closed on Monday.
One needs to appreciate the scale of what was risked. Occupying 26,000 square metres and with 4,000 additional square metres of gardens, Riskal, technologically at the state of the art, comprised an art gallery, an auction room, a bookshop, a jazz club, a disco, three function areas, restaurants and cafés and a catering facility. Two hundred jobs were envisaged. The thirty employees are now out of work. The owner hopes it's not the end, that Riskal may not be closed permanently, that it might be possible to sell it on.
It was rotten timing of course and was not the first grand Mallorcan project to open just when the world's economy was in freefall. Hotel Formentor was another, back in the days of The Depression; it financially crippled Adan Diehl who had arranged its construction. Fifty million euros were splashed on the Riskal pleasure dome, and slap bang in the middle of economic chaos it opened to considerable publicity; full-pages ads in the newspapers and so on. The problem was, what was it? Perhaps it was some overblown vanity project. But such a description would be unfair to Gelabert's vision. Riskal was intended to be a location that would show off the finest of talents, a location for conventions (achieved for example with staging a congress for the UGT union), a location for residents and tourists alike, well those with some money to throw around. It was intended, one guesses, as symbolic of a different type of Mallorca, a sophisticated Mallorca, one in keeping with other visions, those of government and authorities keen on an image of the island elevated from the sun and beach.
No, Riskal was not vanity. It was virtuous, too much so perhaps, but it defied simple definition. A maxim of business is to be able to sum something up in a short sentence. Riskal needed several, or certainly that was the impression its publicity gave. It was difficult to get a handle on the place. Whether it caused much impact among tourists last year is hard for me to say, but the name never seemed to crop up. Or maybe I just move in the wrong circles.
It's a shame. Of course it's a shame that Riskal has closed. New, different projects are just what Mallorca needs. Take another one, due to start this summer - the Mallorca Rocks Hotel in Magaluf. This sounds a fantastic idea, one that builds on the success of the Ibiza Rocks Hotel. The opening of the new hotel will feature The Kooks and DJ Zane Lowe. Apart from the obvious, namely the differences in markets and entertainment offered, Mallorca Rocks is also different to Riskal in that it has a clear focus and identity. It is a music destination. It is easy to understand and therefore easier to market.
Recession clearly played a part in Riskal having to close barely a year after opening, but maybe it was just too broad a concept. Too ambitious and too ill-defined. Too risky.
QUIZ
Yesterday's title - Barbra Streisand and Barry Gibb, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xr-fOJdeUus. Today's title - and once again for this: "did you hear about this one?"
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
One needs to appreciate the scale of what was risked. Occupying 26,000 square metres and with 4,000 additional square metres of gardens, Riskal, technologically at the state of the art, comprised an art gallery, an auction room, a bookshop, a jazz club, a disco, three function areas, restaurants and cafés and a catering facility. Two hundred jobs were envisaged. The thirty employees are now out of work. The owner hopes it's not the end, that Riskal may not be closed permanently, that it might be possible to sell it on.
It was rotten timing of course and was not the first grand Mallorcan project to open just when the world's economy was in freefall. Hotel Formentor was another, back in the days of The Depression; it financially crippled Adan Diehl who had arranged its construction. Fifty million euros were splashed on the Riskal pleasure dome, and slap bang in the middle of economic chaos it opened to considerable publicity; full-pages ads in the newspapers and so on. The problem was, what was it? Perhaps it was some overblown vanity project. But such a description would be unfair to Gelabert's vision. Riskal was intended to be a location that would show off the finest of talents, a location for conventions (achieved for example with staging a congress for the UGT union), a location for residents and tourists alike, well those with some money to throw around. It was intended, one guesses, as symbolic of a different type of Mallorca, a sophisticated Mallorca, one in keeping with other visions, those of government and authorities keen on an image of the island elevated from the sun and beach.
No, Riskal was not vanity. It was virtuous, too much so perhaps, but it defied simple definition. A maxim of business is to be able to sum something up in a short sentence. Riskal needed several, or certainly that was the impression its publicity gave. It was difficult to get a handle on the place. Whether it caused much impact among tourists last year is hard for me to say, but the name never seemed to crop up. Or maybe I just move in the wrong circles.
It's a shame. Of course it's a shame that Riskal has closed. New, different projects are just what Mallorca needs. Take another one, due to start this summer - the Mallorca Rocks Hotel in Magaluf. This sounds a fantastic idea, one that builds on the success of the Ibiza Rocks Hotel. The opening of the new hotel will feature The Kooks and DJ Zane Lowe. Apart from the obvious, namely the differences in markets and entertainment offered, Mallorca Rocks is also different to Riskal in that it has a clear focus and identity. It is a music destination. It is easy to understand and therefore easier to market.
Recession clearly played a part in Riskal having to close barely a year after opening, but maybe it was just too broad a concept. Too ambitious and too ill-defined. Too risky.
QUIZ
Yesterday's title - Barbra Streisand and Barry Gibb, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xr-fOJdeUus. Today's title - and once again for this: "did you hear about this one?"
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Tuesday, April 22, 2008
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 ..."
(PLEASE REPLY TO andrew@thealcudiaguide.com AND NOT VIA THE COMMENTS THINGY HERE.)
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 ..."
(PLEASE REPLY TO andrew@thealcudiaguide.com AND NOT VIA THE COMMENTS THINGY HERE.)
Tuesday, April 15, 2008
Karaoke
Let me entertain you. Let me sing and dance. Let me crank up the karaoke. Let me give you quizzes and games. Let me amuse the children while the parents relax.
The summer entertainment business. Here are West End shows transported south to the sun. Here are the all-rounders with their variety of pranks and acts. Here are the crooners, the comics and the cheerleaders. Here is good and not very good, professional and amateur, the competent and the less so. The summer entertainment business. It requires living within a mass-tourist environment to understand both the scale and pervasiveness of the entertainment and also the demand of the tourist to be entertained. It is no longer a possible add-on, the entertainment is a central part of the tourist package. "What's the entertainment like at ...?" "Are the same entertainers there as last year"? "What entertainment is there?" The tourist wants, no, needs to be entertained. During the day, during the night, the thirst and hunger for entertainment requires a daily diet of jokes, activity, bopping, wailing. I should run a contest to name the best entertainer or entertainers, though some are already nominated on the Internet. Go to hotel reviews in particular, and you'll find these nominations, either the Oscars or the Rotten Tomatoes.
Meanwhile, I have been contacted by an entertainer, one who sounds good. If anyone is in need, that is the purpose of the thing above. It comes from Paul Edwards. His details are all in the neatly designed publicity sheet he has sent me. His email: paulcheekychappy@hotmail.com
To another matter. The sea again. I drove down a road to the beach in Playa de Muro earlier today. The intention had been to check out what was happening with a particular restaurant. I didn't get around to it. There was the red and yellow. The red and yellow of the local police, and the local police motorbike. Then there was the ambulance that had driven onto the sand behind a dune. Then there were the green uniforms of the Guardia. Then there was the stretcher. The person was wearing a wet-suit. Don't know what state he was in. I drove away.
The sea comforts and supports us. But it is the force of nature to which can be applied the maxim: "I made thee and I can break thee." Always the sea.
QUIZ: Yesterday - Van McCoy. Today's title - this was a play, who wrote it?
(PLEASE REPLY TO andrew@thealcudiaguide.com AND NOT VIA THE COMMENTS THINGY HERE.)
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