Set in the shadows of the world-renowned Burj Al Arab, on the Jumeirah beachfront, the Madinat Jumeirah is a development of grand scale, even by Dubai standards, and on completion will be a self-contained city covering a 40-hectare site with two grand boutique hotels - each comprising 300 guest rooms and suites, 340 guest rooms in stand-alone courtyard villas, a souk-style retail complex and the region's largest conference and banqueting facilities - together with a 500-seat theatre, a spa and a nightclub.
With nearly 100 audio zones and eight processor locations throughout the hotel development, this audio network, which was specified and installed by Mediatech Design Group of Dubai, is one of the largest of its type, worldwide: 14 of tsg's famous Promedia hard disk music systems were deployed to evoke the emotions of target customers shopping and dining within the many retail and restaurant propositions found within the Madinat Jumeirah complex.
Paul Beech, tsg's director of programming, commented on the project: "Programming for the 40 locations within the hotel took five months to profile and involved sourcing a lot of musical styles that we didn't ordinarily have. The scale of the project was huge and to meet the requirements of the many retail and dining styles, we have created a number of music 'channels' such as Far Eastern Lounge, Thai Pop, Fusion Jazz, Up-Tempo Lounge & House, Casual Romantic Italian, Arabic Chill-Out, Commercial Western Pop & Dance and Classy Lounge. As well as traditional programmes such as Chinese, Spanish, Latin Jazz and even a Classic Rock channel for Bar Zar, the British-style pub."
"Knowing that the majority of the hotel residents are from the West, I decided to programme for the Madinat Jumeirah by 'feel' from a purely Western perspective, and the feedback from the client has been fantastic. In fact, the hotel's CSi (customer service initiative) rating has actually risen since we have been involved in the music programming. Also, from the new material that we sourced, we were pleasantly surprised to discover how transferable some of the content was to our UK music programmes. The tempo, feel and vibe fit classic candyrock programmes such as Café Bar, Ambient and Cool Jazz seamlessly.
(Lee Baldock)
