A recent trend has superstar DJs playing absolute venues (i.e. the upcoming Steve Aoki show at Madison Square Garden); making it difficult for nightclubs to compete. And as DJ prices skyrocket, focusing on other attractions to redefine themselves is the only way to make nightclub operating viable.
Marquee New York doesn't live or die by the DJ name on the marquee and in June another spot will follow that lead.
Haus is the next highly anticipated club to hit Manhattan. At 5,300 square feet it is large enough and yet small enough to garnish music heads and regular patrons who will enjoy great music programming among friends. It thrives on three levels and will feature a sound system designed by D3Audio in addition to specialty cocktails by Rael Petit of Mulberry Project.
The space, completely redesigned by Rawlins Design, has been a long running club called Canal Room and before that it thrived as many club incarnations for decades.
Nightclub & Bar caught up with Haus Creative Director Isaac Elbhar to discuss the new venue.
You are opening soon; tell us what the place will look like, sound like and who do you feel will be your clientele?
Let’s face it, the space we’ve taken over is in one of the best locations possible for a nightclub in NYC, being nestled between Tribeca and Soho and on the corner of West Broadway and Canal Street. We’ve pulled out all the stops from design and sound system, to lighting and quality and “Haus” DJ’s to make the space even more amazing.
As you know, we’re taking over the former Canal Room space, which has a rich musical history all its own. The space is actually in a 100 year old building and we have done a complete tear down renovation to bring the space back to the old grandeur and grace of that time, complete with our “million dollar chandelier” with each LED having the capability of 16 million different shades of color all individually controlled by Matrix software in addition to being able to play video files to create different visual effects in full color…basically it will be an art piece on crack!
The bar will feature Tiger Eye gemstone and we will have two DJ booths (one floating seven feet in the air and one on the stage with the crowd), plus we have an amazing sound system designed by D3Audio and a lighting setup designed by Reaction Lighting. Basically, we will have all the makings of a VERY high end nightclub that will feature the best international DJs. John Rawlins was our designer and he did a superb job of capturing our vision.
The space is a hybrid between a serious dance club with an in crowd, in addition, to socializing regulars (i.e. similar to Marquee). Tell us about that.
Yes, that’s pretty accurate. Another way to look at it would be a hybrid between Lavo and Provocateur with a sprinkling of gold dust from Marquee thrown in for good measure. It will have a great international house music DJ scene with people dancing and having a great time, but we also plan on doing something we think is unique to the industry, where we will be bringing mixology to nightlife. Basically during the day we will have a very swanky mixology bar/lounge and at night we morph more into a lounge/nightclub but with the twist that the mixology program will be baked into the night program including the bottle service setup.
Haus is German for House. Can you define House music? Will other genre's(i.e. rock and hip-hop) have nights?
Yes, Haus is all about House music! For us, Haus will be about all types of house music, from deep house, to techno, to EDM, etc. and will vary quite a bit in terms of style and influence each night. House music, as you know is typically electronically generated sounds and recordings from genres such as jazz and blues. Synth pop is often added to the core of the drumbeat and the synth bass line. House can also include disco or soul-style, gospel vocals and additional percussion. We will basically have it all, as long as it’s house! We will only have house music.
How will you compete with large clubs and a market where music/DJ costs continue to rise?
The sad part of this industry is some clubs pay tremendous amounts of money for a DJ and also make sure they won’t be playing elsewhere for the next 6 months. So who loses with that setup? The people who want to hear great music! We aren’t a mega-club; we are more of a nightclub that provides an amazing experience and amazing customer satisfaction. The key to success in this industry is being authentic with respect to your product, and in providing excellent service, love and a passion for what you are doing. Treat every single customer, whether they spend $20 for a drink or a $5,000 for a table, with the same level of respect and service. People want to come to where they feel most welcome. Also, we’re starting to see a trend where just like the Rolling Stones or Springsteen in the rock world, where some of the megastars now want to play some of the smaller lounge-like spaces and are growing tired of the mega-club scene…it’s more intimate and it's more real.
Table service has defined much of NYC and indeed international nightlife. How will you embrace this revenue stream?
We will embrace that revenue stream with elegance and grace and then kill it with great DJs and cocktails. Bottle service will be part of it also but with a twist. We can't divulge everything that we have planned around bottle service and entertainment but trust me when I say it will be truly unique.