Tonight marks the grand reopening bash of the newly renovated WALL Lounge, tucked in the belly of the W SOBE Hotel in Miami. DJ Sinatra will be pumping out the beats, dozens of stunning European models will be standing high atop the banquettes and vodka will be flowing like crazy, but that won’t be different from many other nights WALL has come to be known for. The only difference visible tonight will be the layout of the room. And in case you’re scratching your head, wondering why a club that’s only been open for about a year needs a redesign, owner Nicola Siervo is ready to explain how the changes are all for the customer’s benefit.
“We didn’t really have a need to redesign,” Siervo shares, “but in our case it was about function more than style. Our facelift changed the layout of the place to make it better for our clients.” Chief among the changes: The DJ booth, which was nestled in the far left corner of the room, is now smack in the middle of it; the large couches that formed an “X” in the center of the room have been removed, creating a larger dance floor; and a number of new lights were installed “to heighten the effects of the music,” Siervo says. The color motif — gold and black with black walls with strips of red LED in them — will remain the same.
“We decided to do the renovations during Winter Music Conference,” which took place in March, Siervo says “When we had all the music parties booked, we had to temporarily centralize the DJ booth, so we ended up putting it right in the middle of the dance floor and we loved how it changed the flow of the room. So we decided [after WMC] to close for a few days in October and make this permanent.”
The new layout, which is rumored to have cost six figures, keeps in line with the current trend of making nightlife all about the DJ, and making the DJ booth more of a stage for your venue’s revelers. “The booth is no longer hidden. Now our great DJs will have the whole room in front of them to play off of,” says Siervo. “When you’re standing in it, you have every table in the room looking at you, and you can really feel the energy when we’ve got someone in there really rocking. Our clients will notice this too, but they’ll also notice a new vibe when they walk into the room simply because it’s a fresh look. It’ll give everyone a good feeling.”