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Hotels will play an increasingly important role in the event entertainment industry, and music will be an important component of that process. Hotels feature music at their property to fulfill a number of goals:
a) Provide atmosphere and call attention to their property
b) Bring in new and different business than would normally be attracted to the property and translate that business into increased food and beverage revenues
c) Provide better customer service to their clients
The follow section will explore these three goals and give examples of how to use music and other entertainment options to achieve them
When thoughtfully coordinated with a hotel property's goals and marketing strategies, music can boost guests' contentment level and provide significant food and beverage sales revenues. Like the well-selected carpet, artwork, and staff uniforms, music plays a significant role in a hotel's décor. Music can be a way in which a hotel can distinguish itself from its competition. It can make guests feel appreciated, cared for, and at home.
Choosing the music style best suited to a property involves some basic marketing research. Start by identifying the target market and evaluating its demographics. Answer questions such as where they are from, their age, gender, and level of education. Then, consider the image you want to project. Is it sophisticated and elegant or trendy and upbeat? Are you trying to create a mood of serenity or excitement? Finally, determine what type of business you are trying to attract? Do you want guests to linger or are you looking to quicken the turnover pace in your restaurant? Once you have established your goals, a local professional music company can provide valuable assistance in selecting the ideal musical accompaniment for the lobby, lounge, and restaurant. They can also provide recommendations regarding the lighting, placement, attire, and speaker systems that will best enhance the desired mood and image.
Hotels that are located in a metropolitan area will compete with many venues for their guests' leisure time. In order to compete with these other options, a restaurant or bar must have personality, in addition to a pleasant atmosphere. The right musicians can make the lounge an exciting destination in and of itself, not just a place to have a drink before the guest goes out to explore the city.
What can a property do to keep its guests from leaving the premises and investigating what the host city has to offer? Consider offering entertainment that will be popular with the community, such as a cabaret room or a popular bar with live entertainment. People are more alive with live music and instead of ordering one drink and leaving, a customer is invited to relax and unwind and ultimately to become aware of other people in the room. This generates social or business networking, and keeps guests at the bar, buying drinks. While this strategy may not generate as much income as room sales, it will yield significant beverage sales, and, the property's bar may become the 'go to' place in the community, attracting both guests and locals.
Make the music fit the objectives. Musicians that perform for forty minutes on the hour and play with a sense of urgency might be the suitable choice for a quick turnover, as during brunch service. Long and slow ballads may have customers eating more deliberately. When the dining experience is the entertainment for the night, the hotel restaurateur must keep his customers happy throughout the evening. Fine cuisine, fine service, fine linens and cutlery, and fine visual decor, are strengthened when accompanied by fine music. This translates into a selection of music that can be prepared specifically to meet these objectives with, of course, fewer breaks.
Most hoteliers will agree that it is more effective to increase the productivity and profitability of a current guest or client than to try to find a new one. The challenge lies in providing the services that go above and beyond the guest’s expectations. The engagement of live music is an often overlooked tool you can use to enhance both service and profitability for rooms, food, and beverage sales.
Hotels, while having the responsibilities of attracting guests to their properties, should exceed the service expectations of today's customer. Arrange the optimum sensory perception package! This is essential to a hotel's success. It takes more then just putting musicians in a corner and asking them to perform music to set the tone or complement the decor. Assist them with their living aural deco by organizing a package deal. Theatrical lighting plays an important aesthetic role to reveal colors, shading, and ambiance through tracking, pin spots, gobos, fresnels, or lekos. Lighting can immediately focus the audience's attention, and can be animated to excite the viewer and listener.
Music is sound. Your equipment and sound quality must be considered. One can only hear by listening directly to the music, called acoustic, or by hearing the music amplified. Speakers, mixing boards, microphones, and amplifiers are prerequisites. Amplitude, tone, style, entertainment, distortion, background, all play a major part in preparation for the specific sound you need. Keep in mind the importance of visual finesse and placement of the equipment. For example, a major downtown New York venue has the house speakers lodged in palm trees. Today's audiences are accustomed to listening to state of the art audio technology.
“Include bands and other musical entertainment as part of your banquet package.” When the meeting or event planner is in the mood to sign on the dotted line, sell them a package to include food and beverage, music, and entertainment. The “outside” vendors get booked through the property at a commissionable rate to the property, thereby creating a line item on the income statement for that event for the hotel. If the hotels are making a 15% margin from outsourcing the entertainment for the clients, it will be good for both the hotel and the planner, who now does not need to be concerned about this element of his or her event. (Shock, 2001).
Both hotel employees and event planners that use hotel should be aware of these entertainment possibilities for these venues. For hoteliers, it could significantly increase revenues and make the property more attractive to large, group business. For event planners, having built-in entertainment in a hotel is a major benefit as it keeps your attendees entertained and potentially reduces your actual costs of entertainment.
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Industry News: Utilizing Entertainment to Grow your Attendance
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featured artist: The Tucker Family Christmas Show 2007, starring Tanya Tucker
 Mark
Sonder, CSEP is the Chief Entertainment Officer of Mark Sonder
Productions, an award-winning leading national entertainment agency designing
headline talent and production services for facilities,
corporations and associations. In addition, Sonder sits on
the faculty of The George Washington University, Stratford
University, Northern Virginia Community College, University
of Nevada at Las Vegas (UNLV) and The University of the West
Indies. Event
Entertainment and Production is the book published by
Wiley authored by Sonder.
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