One of the biggest challenges of design is to unlock value through the atypical, the not so obvious. Making design work for business is often through innovative breakthroughs.
Bars are what bars do, right? Well maybe ...no. For hotelS and hospitality brands, bars are often strange planets. They are filled to the gills in the evenings and weekends but deserted otherwise. That can be a huge opportunity cost when you calculate the price of real estate and rentals. However the fact remains that bars remain some of the most social addresses.
The challenge here was something hotels, restaurants face owing to the simple habit of people. They socialize in bars during the evenings, while in the daytime most bars wear a deserted look. So as venture designers, the problem we set out to solve was how do we make the bars occupying expensive real estate in cities, unlock value? Our idea was simple. Why not turn them into a urban classroom for a skill that is most suited in such social spaces?
Creating and designing a new bar code
Bars could be the new Penny Universities, or might we call them Pint Universities!
Bars have replaced the Penny Universities or the old coffee houses as the gathering places for intellectuals, thinkers, creators and their world changing big ideas and conversations. Bars today are the new petri dish. Great minds socialise around great beverages. But there is one achilles heel each bar suffers from. And that is the footfall in the day time or what the industry calls the slack hours.
The fact remained, that while bars during the evenings were buzzing addresses, they remained woefully slack during the day. That coupled with teetotallers amongst us at NYUCT Design Labs, made us think as to how a bar could be more than just a bar at its weakest point - during daytime. Since they occupied prime time real estate in the toniest districts made this a genuine business problem. This was blue ocean territory for us.
We joined some dots and asked if bars can be the new classrooms to teach skills? The workshop venues with a difference.
Circa 2014, we joined the following dots. (1) Bars are well located urban social addresses (2) Convenient and safe locations in landmark hotels (3) They have plenty of slack space and idle time during the day and (4) An increasing need amongst people to pick up “bucket list” skills, that fill up their social repertoire. Something new to learn, new to dabble with. Joining these above dots led us to a classroom reimagined.
In 2014, we conceived the Sound Labs series in partnership with Dj dispensary UK, led by our good friend, the unflappable Matty Wainwright. The connection we realized was epiphanic.
We worked with Matty to reinvent and recreate the classrooms not on the thrumming beaches of Ibiza but in the middle of bars across a luxury hospitality chain and its city addresses. The curriculum must matter.
He was once upon a time a legendary DJ at the Wink and had moved on to establish the dispensary, doling out lessons in haute vacation destinations.
The bars became sound labs for amateur Djs and practitioners of the discipline to jam and riff with the Dj tutors. The students got a 3 days course, certificate, merchandise kit, and if they wanted, a live recording of their tuitions. The IP slowly hotted up over the next 3 years. We had enthusiastic sign ups, great press and even an iconic liquor brand sponsoring a large team of young Djs in Hyderabad.
Design thinking a classroom. Making a slack yet premium real estate count BY skilling a community.
Our task was to build a skill classroom, in an unlikely place. By bringing reputed and talented pool of Djs and tutors to teach enthusiastic students willing to explore an alter ego. Right in the middle of city bars. Learning the art of Djing and winding down towards the evening with some great house music from the DJ tutors.
The workshops were aimed at the young in sensibility, the free spirited, experiential audiences who love music, social engagement and juggle multiple interests and seek new experiences. We even got classes being gifted as a birthday surprise for young students.
Matty Wainwright and Paul dish out the 101s on ‘how to be a DJ’ through their personalised master classes.
Open to both residents and guests at each hotel, each Master Class was tailored to give an up close and personal one-on-one training with the tutors, a DJ Dispensary Survival Kit, and for those who wanted, a ‘live’ recording of the mix and images from the class.
About NYUCT Design Labs
As a venture design firm we work with you to start up, scale up, innovate or simply solve a problem. Our lab explores what your customers, employees, and partners want in order to create transformative ventures, strategies and experiences. With a collective wisdom and experience of more than 188 years amongst our interdisciplinary team of venture designers, strategists, techies, creators, coders, product developers and experience architects, we love helping you build the better. Make the amazing.