Category: Music

by Chris Emmanuel
As far as the entertainment industry goes, Tracy Phillips is one whose shoes are certainly hard to fill. The humble and trendy pace setter very kindly took time out her busy schedule to sit down and have a chat with CHOICES.

She is young, beautiful and successful. She is undoubtedly a household name among the partygoers at Zouk. Though not always seen, Tracy is often heard through her ideas and concepts that have indeed been a part of the success Zouk experiences.

Born in Singapore, the Marketing Manager of Zouk grew up in Australia. She returned to Singapore when she was 12 and got her secondary school education at St. Joseph’s Convent. After her O’ Levels, Tracy enrolled in a Diploma programme at Nanyang Polytechnic. Upon graduation, she landed her first job at the Waterfilms Production House.

A fan of Zouk ever since her first clubbing days, she used to frequent the nightspot very often. During these visits, she loved sharing her creative ideas on the clubbing scene and it was through such encounters that she found herself being offered a job by Zouk’s management. Sounds like a dream come true for the rest of us.

She kicked off her career with Zouk in September 1998. “I had no prior intentions of actually working in a club, but had always had a great passion for music & club culture and in particular for Zouk. It’s been an amazing journey and I am extremely grateful to Lincoln and all the wonderful people I work with daily for providing me with the opportunity,” says Tracy.

The gorgeous 29-year-old relates that when she first started out in the industry, it was hard to be taken seriously. “I was very young back then, with crazy hairstyles & quirky outfits and working with industry peers.”

Care taken to maintain order at ZoukOut party
ST 27 Dec

IN RESPONSE to Mr Kwok Chee Chiu’s letter, ‘Stop diseases, ban parties like ZoukOut’ (ST, Dec 14).

From the nature of the letter, I assume Mr Kwok did not attend ZoukOut and the opinion may be based on The New Paper post-coverage and the translated version carried in the Chinese dailies. This is unfortunate as it was only The New Paper that took this angle out of more than 150 local and foreign publications that attended and covered the event.

This highlights the fact that that story was not an accurate overall reflection of the 23,000 attendees over the 12-hour period, and the pictures featured were of isolated incidents of consenting adults who may have been behaving more intimately than some would consider appropriate but, by no means, against the law. The article may have provoked strong emotions but we assure everyone that Zouk takes safety and managing a party within the legal parameters of the Singapore judicial system very seriously.

Although we respect Mr. Kwok’s point of view, we believe such a call for action, if implemented, would not benefit Singapore’s nightlife industry, tourism (more than 9,000 international guests attended), world democratic standing or economy. ZoukOut has become a national event over the last seven years and a fixture on the international dance and music calendar, considered by many to be one of the best in the world in terms of management, production and entertainment. As responsible organisers, our pre-emptive measures to maintain law and order and abide by licensing conditions included hiring more than 150 security personnel, plus another 40 uniformed police. In addition, ZoukOut is one of the few major events in Singapore where attendees must present photo ID stating they are above 18.

To call for a ban of events like ZoukOut, that promote tolerance, uniting people from all walks of life, regardless of nationality, as the solution to stopping the spread of diseases is in our view misguided and not the most productive way to address the issue. Echoing Forum respondent Dr Wong Jock Onn on Dec 18, it is through better education that people have a greater awareness of how sexually transmitted diseases are spread and ultimately make the right choices.

It was heartening to see all three respondents (Andre Oei, Owen Yeo and Anna Wong) in the ST YouthInk section on Dec 24, all under the age of 21, making concise, analytical and educated statements on whether such events should be banned. They leave us with confidence that the youth of Singapore are more knowledgable, responsible and informed than some may think.

Tracy Phillips
Marketing Manager
Zouk Management

The Straits Times
Nov 17, 2007

Ministry of Sound parent sues Singapore franchise
UK nightlife giant unhappy over local licensee’s running of its nightclub here
By Sujin Thomas

THE London-based parent company of the nightlife giant Ministry of Sound (MoS) has filed suit against its Singapore franchise, alleging a litany of shortfalls in the way it is run – from the kind of music played to its unstable website.

MoS filed suit in Britain’s High Court of Justice on Thursday, seeking damages and a court order to force its Singapore licensee LB Investments to fall in with its guidelines on running the club.

LB Investments is a subsidiary of Singapore mainboard-listed company LifeBrandz.

MoS has alleged, among many things, that LifeBrandz’s focus has been on promoting its stable of other nightclubs in Clarke Quay, such as The Clinic, Fashion Bar and Lunar.

Court papers also said the MoS Singapore website has ‘often been down or inaccessible’.

LB Investments is also said to have breached its contract in the areas of staff uniforms, music policy, door policy and the dismissal of key employees.

The bottom line: It had ‘failed to develop’ the club here ‘in a manner consistent with the reputation of the brand’.

LB Investments signed the contract in April 2005 for 15 years and threw a big bash when the 40,000-sq-ft party venue opened in December 2005.

The lawsuit caps an almost year-long exchange of letters and talks, which MoS said ‘was never taken seriously’.

LifeBrandz chief executive Clement Lee said: ‘We don’t think these breaches are of any substance. They have claimed certain things and I don’t think all of them are true.’

He added that his lawyers from Rajah & Tann would draft a reply to MoS.

Besides the alleged breaches of contract, MoS claims that it is owed $200,000 in royalties which were due in April.

But Mr Lee said he was due to pay only next month: ‘Their claim of our not paying them the money is ridiculous because the contract is not even due.’

MoS International’s president Michael Wilkings, who has visited the club here, told The Straits Times on the line from Dubai: ‘The breaches are material, substantial, continuing and unremedied. We are out of patience.’

He has been overseeing the nightclubs and bars under the MoS brand outside Britain for the past 11/2 years; MoS makes about $300 million worldwide every year and now has another franchise in Egypt.

He said: ‘We have been trying to deal with Clement Lee and his colleagues through most of this year, to try and make him understand MoS Singapore has to be operated at a standard that is acceptable to MoS.’

When asked how MoS was alerted to these breaches, he said that, besides customer feedback, periodic checks are made on the group’s clubs, some without the licensees’ knowledge.

‘We obviously don’t have a lot of confidence in their ability to operate the club,’ he said.

Rumours of an imminent closure have churned among partygoers since last month, when industry sources began speculating about unhappiness in Britain’s MoS about the way the club here was run.

But as far as Mr Lee is concerned, the party goes on, since the franchise has not been revoked.

He said: ‘There just seems to have been a difference in direction as to what is expected and what we’re delivering.’

ST
Sun 26 Nov 2007

Canned brands – a hit or miss?

A foreign club brand may entice a crowd at the start, but it’s not enough to keep them coming back

By Frankie Chee

MADE in Britain, established since 1991.

That’s what its tag would read if the Ministry of Sound (MoS) had one.

The nightspot’s London outlet’s reputation for thumping house beats spurred Singaporean clubbers to endure long queues to check out the action when MoS opened in Clarke Quay in 2005.

Listed home-grown company LifeBrandz, which brought in MoS, went on to introduce other established nightspot brands from overseas such as Cafe Del Mar, Fashion Bar and Barfly.

Mr Clement Lee, chief executive of LifeBrandz, says brand names ‘come with recognition’.

His take is that ‘it’s the success of the investment that counts. If I have to pay for something that will give me a better chance of making it, then why not?’

But LifeBrandz ran into some turbulence last week when reports said that it had been sued by MoS’ London-based parent company.

The latter cited a list of infringements – from the music genre offered to the uniform of its staff, and even its unstable website.

It is believed that LifeBrandz has a 15-year deal to use the MoS monicker.

‘We will be answering them through a lawyer, and will look at what we can do when we get more detailed information on their complaints,’ Mr Lee says.

To be sure, imported brand names are not a recent trend.

Over the last 15 years, names like Thailand’s trendy Q Bar and America’s posh Studebaker’s have popped up here, only to fold within five years because of poor business.

Similarly, France’s famous revue, Crazy Horse, trotted off after barely a year here, incurring a write-off of $5.7 million for franchisee Eng Wah Organisation.

No wonder then that industry sources note that a foreign import is no guarantee of surefire success.

Clubbers here are notoriously fickle – the now-deserted Mohamed Sultan Road bears witness to this, after a short three years of fame.

Sure, the nightlife industry may be worth more than $250 million a year but it is contested by many players, from Chinese KTV lounges to the opening of new hubs like Tanglin Village and the revamped Clarke Quay.

Customers are king and are not afraid to barhop.

And the initial gasps soon fizzle out, even for famous overseas brands, if they do not have any particularly strong proprietary edge.

Industry sources say that ultimately, it doesn’t matter who you are but what you can give to the customer.

‘In the end, it’s really the quality of people, music and exclusivity that counts for me,’ says Ms Brenda Kow, 30, a derivatives broker who parties at least once a week.

There are enough local success stories, such as the Harry’s chain, Zouk, the Emerald Hill Group, IndoChine and St James Power Station, to back the contention that home-grown players have the ability to cut it too.

Some, like Attica, IndoChine and Zouk, have expanded to places like Shanghai, Hamburg and Kuala Lumpur.

Pays to be home-grown

THE advantage of incubating homegrown brands is that you can save on paying licence fees and royalties to a franchisor.

‘In a very competitive environment, when revenue goes down, all these excessive costs can become a huge burden on the operator,’ says Mr Dennis Foo, chief executive of St James Power Station.

‘All the money paid to the franchisor after the few years of operation should have been in our own bank account, not theirs,’ he adds.

Upfront licensing fees can number in the millions while royalties can be as high as 10 per cent of the annual profits.

Such payments can become a drag on profits, especially if the customer numbers stagnate, or worse, drop.

Mr Lee admits that the attendance at MoS – which celebrates its second anniversary next month – has tapered compared to its first few months.

He is unable to say how much the numbers have dropped, saying only that it now draws 3,000 to 5,000 patrons on a good weekend night.

Despite the heavy financial obligations, the franchisees don’t get full control over the product.

They have to abide by stipulated management, music and operation standards, and changes have to gain the nod of the brandowner.

This means they will not have a free hand in making the crucial tweaks to give what the local folks want. And foreign operators may not fully understand the local situation and, hence, may not agree to changes in management or concepts.

Each market is different, a fact which local clubbing icon Zouk learnt when it opened its first overseas outlet in Kuala Lumpur in 2004.

Zouk’s marketing manager Tracy Phillips says: ‘It’s a different market over there; they have other kinds of influences that can affect the business, such as the age and operating-hour restrictions.’

Zouk KL’s director Cher Ng says: ‘We had to think about the local culture, like drinking habits and music trends.’

Such attention to detail has allowed it to attract between 5,000 and 6,000 clubbers during the four days it operates a week.

The freedom to innovate was key too for Attica when it exported its concept to Shanghai last year.

‘By owning our own brand, we can play with certain aspects of the club and adapt them to suit the local client base,’ says Mr Mikey M.S., director of Attica.

Another Singapore export is IndoChine which has stretched its wings to Hamburg, Kuala Lumpur, Phuket and New Delhi.

Local players agree that the onus is on the operator to decide which makes better business sense for him – to import a brand or groom his own.

Mr Lee says: ‘Surely, there is more freedom in operating your own brand but, ultimately, it’s the entertainment on offer that’s important, not just the logo.’

LifeBrandz has seen it fit too to invest in its own brandnames such as Lunar and The Clinic in Clarke Quay and Balcony Bar in The Heeren.

Mr Mohan Mulani, chief executive of Harry’s Holdings which operates 25 outlets, says that while ‘developing your own brand is tough and takes time, it’s rewarding”.

Mr Foo also prefers to do things his way.

‘If it’s your own brand, you own it. And if you build it up, it’s yours, not somebody else’s. So if you can build your own brand, why pay for someone else’s and do it for him?’

ST March 11, 2007
Battle of clubs
Party Central is now firmly focused on the trinity of Zouk, Ministry of Sound and St James Power Station, each with its rabid fans

By Sandra Leong

IF YOU haven’t been out on the town for a couple of months, prepare yourself for a shock as you get set to spin around that disco ball.

In that short space of time, Singapore’s nightclub scene has exploded to centralise around three monster clubs, with news emerging yesterday that the dancefloor shake-up has claimed its first victim.

Smaller clubs are taking a thumping – literally. Thumper at Goodwood Park Hotel revealed that it has had to shut down.

The mid-sized nightclub was hit by falling takings as clubbers streamed to what has quickly become Party Central’s unholy trinity: iconic Zouk, massive Ministry of Sound (MoS) and the newcomer that drove the nail into Thumper’s coffin, St James Power Station.

One of Thumper’s owners, Mr David Chin, says the club’s downward spiral started last November when ‘all the big places started opening’, adding: ‘St James and all that… it took a big chunk out of us’.

But what do partygoers care: Many of them are no doubt pondering more pressing issues, like what to wear to St James’ official opening tomorrow night – a $600,000 bash, no less.

The megaclub opened in September with a soft launch, but immediately blasted the old scene to bits. It split Singapore revellers into three distinct tribes, based on what nightclub they prefer to go to.

New friendships were forged. Old ones failed. All hinges on what crowd you identify with. Are you a Smoover? Or a Dragonfly buzzer? Or does ol’ Velvet do it for you?

A whole new cultural touchpoint has sprung up, virtually overnight.

As one clubber, 26-year-old accounts manager Lisa Yeo, puts it: ‘Zouk people are the trendiest, MoS people are those who want to be trendy, and St James people are those who really don’t give a damn.’

WORLD-renowned Zouk at Jiak Kim Street; British legendary dance club MoS at Clarke Quay; and all-in-one entertainment complex St James Power Station at HarbourFront already account for up to 40 per cent of the nightlife scene’s estimated $250 million-a-year revenue, say industry players.

Although new, St James is the heavyweight of the three. Standing at over 70,000 sq ft with nine separate clubs, it is more than twice the size of Zouk and 11/2 times MoS – making the former coal-fired power station the biggest entertainment venue in Singapore.

Spruced up for a hefty $43 million, it has already garnered a reputation as a one-stop, hip spot offering everything from house to live music. Though it is targeted at PMEBs (professionals, managers, executives and businessmen), its crowd ranges from teens to 50somethings.

Tomorrow’s launch extravaganza is expected to be attended by more than 5,000 revellers. The $600,000 bill includes entertainment, food and drinks; and three cars, one to be given away every four months.

It will also be attended by Defence Minister Teo Chee Hean, which is probably the first time a club opening has received such a high-powered guest of honour.

St James chief executive officer Dennis Foo says Mr Teo was invited through the Workforce Development Agency, which has recognised the megaclub’s efforts to train its 350 staff in the hospitality trade.

Next up in size is the 40,000 sq ft MoS, which opened in December 2005 amid much hype. The franchise club has five themed rooms playing anything from retro to hip-hop and is touted as the most lavish MoS in the world.

Completing the trio, 16-year-old Zouk also upped the ante recently when it underwent a $5 million revamp in September 2005. At about 30,000 sq ft, it is still the smallest of the three, but what it lacks in size it makes up in reputation.

YET just two years ago, Thumper at Goodwood Park Hotel was the darling of Singapore’s nightlife scene, playing host to a bevy of Beautiful People, and even picking up the coveted Best Nightspot title awarded by the Singapore Tourism Board.

But today the mid-sized joint popular for its live band and sophisticated crowds is no more, no thanks to flagging crowds and a 70 per cent drop in business.

Over 1,000 nightspots – ranging from big-name establishments to neighbourhood pubs – now dot the island. But as far as some revellers are concerned – and as Thumper found to its cost – the trinity rules them all.

Indeed, Thumper’s Mr Chin owns another nightspot, Q Bar at The Old Parliament House, and he says its business dropped by about 50 per cent in January, though other factors such as heavy rain and the post-festive season also came into play.

Over at another mid-sized club, Attica, marketing manager Amanda Ng laments: ‘The growing number of such superclubs, mid-sized clubs and bars popping up does not justify the population of clubbers… ultimately, all in this industry will somehow or other be affected by this trend.’

St James’ Mr Foo, a nightclub scene veteran who also owns Devils Bar in Orchard Hotel, says: ‘Nowadays, customers look for the biggest, with the most, and having the best.’

Still, some would have thought the presence of incumbent biggies Zouk and MoS would have deterred St James from throwing its hat in the ring.

Indeed, when St James’ first outlet, mandopop jive Dragonfly, opened in September, it had a dry three weeks, recalls Mr Foo.

‘I was initially quite worried. But after the third week, the response grew and I can say the feeling was like coming out of a whirlwind into a clear blue sky.’

St James now makes close to $1 million every month, with every one of its outlets profitable, he reveals. That’s no small beer.

However, Mr Michel Lu, who ran the now-defunct Centro and now owns chill-out lounges like Suba and The Hacienda, notes: ‘I’m very confident that Dennis will do well… his focus is there because St James has many different offerings.’

WITH St James already proving a runaway success, neither Zouk nor MoS will admit to feeling any jitters, though.

Mr Clement Lee, executive director of MoS’ parent company LifeBrandz, says: ‘We have each targeted different markets. The proposition is different, the music is different.’

While St James may be big on live music, MoS, he says, is frequented by savvy dance music lovers who appreciate the ‘heritage’ of the brand, which has its roots in British youth culture.

From August to October last year, LifeBrandz’ lifestyle sector chalked up takings of $6.5 million, the majority of which came from MoS. The club sees about 20,000 to 30,000 partygoers a week.

Similarly, Zouk’s marketing manager, Ms Tracy Philips, counters that going by sales, the club had its ‘best year’ in its 16-year history. ‘The economy picked up, we had a lot of noteworthy events and we still enjoy a strong following.’

Though Zouk was initially hit by the entry of MoS, with business dropping by about 20 per cent, St James has not made much of a dent. Says Ms Philips: ‘In terms of size, we’re a mid-sized club. But in terms of status and quality, we are a super club. So I’d like to think we are somewhere in between in our own niche.’

Even Mr Foo stresses that St James was never designed to rival the other big boys. ‘From the start, we were clear about our different target audience – PMEBs. So St James merely filled what was a vacuum in the scene.’

St James’ chief operating officer, Mr Andrew Ing, also points out that about one-third of the club’s clientele comes from ‘latent’ demand – people who never used to club, but are now inspired to paint the town red.

So rather than compete, the relationship between the Big Three is complementary, with each generating interest for the other, says Ms Philips. ‘Every new outlet that opens now lends its success to the people who paved the way before.’

But some observers feel the ‘different strokes, different folks’ refrain is too convenient an explanation.

Says one industry player who declines to be named: ‘The Velvet (a club within Zouk) crowd has gone to Dragonfly (one of St James’ outlets), the Zouk people have gone to Power House. I would say Zouk has been widely affected.’

Adds Mr Lu: ‘The pie has grown a lot larger but, unfortunately, not large enough. Someone’s gonna hurt… Inevitably there will be some loss of crowd somewhere. Anyone who says his business is better than ever, it cannot be. How can it add up?’

Still, Mr Foo believes there is room for a fourth super club in Singapore.

He says: ‘It’s like saying, is there room for another six-star hotel. When St James first opened up, people said there wouldn’t be enough people. But the people will come.’