New Club Opening - Swords

Bluetonic

Homer wrote: »

Anyone who managed to get a sneak preview this week before friday was lucky as from tonight on regular punters will only have access to floors one and two and not be able to see the vip rooms (including the spectacular scarface room) or the top floor penthouse suite and outdoor rooftop bar and terrace.

By the sounds of it if you've not had the sneak preview your life just isn't complete.

Larianne

Homer wrote: »

It's a "soft" opening tonight and tomorrow and the official opening is on the 23rd of this month.
The lady ga ga rumour is not true but apparently it will be pixie lott instead.

insider information wink wink

Or from the Hearld.

dsmythy

Didn't go myself. My sister failed to get in before scampering back to Velvet. She was saying there was mass refusals as you would expect from an opening night.

Crackerspray

Give it a few months and they'll be begging for punters- even the private members clubs, hotels and bars are struggling and some have opened to the public in recent months, hope they do well, which they will for the first while when people are checking the place out, but I have a feeling it will turn into a venue that you go to for a friends birthday etc. rather than a local haunt!

Clare Bear

Was there lastnight. Meh nothing special, looks good but I wasn't blown away. Was surprised at how many people they were turning away when I went in. For no apparent reason. Well dressed, respectable looking people both male and female. It's getting a bad name already, I think they have to realise where they are and turning away people for no good reason is going to put a bad taste in their mouths. I'd be very annoyed if I got a taxi and back to Airside to be turned away.

Carter12

400 turned away the first night. That wont last long methinks

Larianne

Was it maybe a younger crowd they were turning away or what?

Not a good start really is it?

Clare Bear

Larianne wrote: »

Was it maybe a younger crowd they were turning away or what?

Not a good start really is it?

No, not really. Three girls in their mid to late twenties all dressed well, not drunk or being loud or anything that were in front of us were turned away for no reason. If I had a club they would be the kind of people I'd want in there. Two couples behind us, same story. With a good few still hanging around that couldn't get in. And this was early enough. Baffling really, I don't know if it's bouncers on a power trip or what but they're not going about it the right way if they want to do well there.

Carter12

All sorts were being turned away. Even regulars from Wrights. One of the regulars who was being turned away phoned one of the managers from the door. The manager came to the door and let them in. Mad

Daughter said respectable looking people were being turned away for no reason.

Saturday night was very quiet there... so I cant see the door policy lasting for long.

PCros

I heard its only a Friday and Saturday night venue for the public and then it'll host fashion shows, coporate outings and other events on the weeknights.

People getting turned away from Wrights for no reason is not new issue, they've been doing it for years.

Bluetonic

PCros wrote: »

I heard its only a Friday and Saturday night venue for the public and then it'll host fashion shows, coporate outings and other events on the weeknights.

I'm glad someone has filled this gap in the market.

Bluetonic

The Wright stuff
Sunday, July 12, 2009 By Ian Kehoe
Michael Wright has spent the past decade quietly building a successful chain of pubs and restaurants across the north side of Dublin. Two days ago, however, the entrepreneur kick-started the most high profile business venture of his career.

Wright has spent more than five years and tens of millions of euro developing the Wright Venue, a purpose-built nightclub and entertainment complex.

Last Friday night, the venue opened to the public for the first time. In getting to opening night, Wright has broken pretty much every rule in the book.

The scion of the ‘Wrights of Howth’ fishmonger dynasty has opened the most expensive and expansive nightclub in Irish history at a time when the economy is in crisis and pubs and clubs are going out of business on a weekly basis.
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He has also broken the old adage about ‘the right location’ as well.

Instead of locating his club on a main thoroughfare in a city centre, Wright has built his nightclub in the middle of the Airside Retail Park on Dublin’s northside, adjacent to a Chevrolet car dealership and facing a hardware depot.

But if the 45-year-old businessman is nervous about his newest venture, he does a fine job masking it. Calm and assured, Wright fits the bill of the nightclub impresario - fashionable grey-blond shoulder length hair, designer jeans, blazer and open neck shirt.

‘‘We abandoned convention and tradition with this place,” Wright said. ‘‘Look around you - have you ever seen everything like this in Ireland before?” He certainly has a point. Spread over four floors, the Wright Venue can cater for more than 2,000 people and includes a club, luxury suites, numerous lounges, a live venue and a penthouse bar.

Each room in the complex was designed with a specific theme and at spectacular expense - the entire development has cost €38 million.

Even the underground car park cost €8.5 million to build, according to Wright, whose company, the Wright Bar Group, owns six pubs and restaurants including Wright’s Cafe Bar in Swords and the Bloody Stream in Howth.

Instead of cloakroom tickets, the Wright Venue has installed biometric fingerprint technology. Traditional menus have been replaced with LCD menu screens (costing €1,000 a pop).The disco ball is the largest and most expensive in the country (the builders had to remove a wall to fit it into the nightclub).

‘‘We have spared no expense,” said Wright. ‘‘We have travelled the world, visiting nightclubs and venues from New York to Las Vegas. We have taken the best ideas and the best concepts from all over the globe and brought them here.”

The international influence is obvious. Wright has installed four personal party spaces named and styled after four cities - New York, Miami, Las Vegas and LA .The rooms can cater for 15 people, and Wright said they would be rented out for €1,500 per night.

The venue will open two nights a week initially - Friday and Saturday - with a view to opening on other nights in the coming months.

However, Wright said he expected to have various functions and events to keep the place ticking over for the rest of the week.

‘‘We will operate as a live venue on some of the other nights. We hope to get product launches, fashion shows and company events. We even think we can cater for weddings. We have the scope here to do pretty much everything. The business case stacks up,” he said.

Wright said he was not too concerned about the impact of the recession on his new club. In his estimation, people still wanted to socialise, and now opt for one big night out at the weekend rather than going out several times during the week.

‘‘Entertainment and hospitality are recession-proof if you give people what they want and if you give them value,” he said.

‘‘That is what we are trying to do. People perceive value in different ways. It is not all about being cheap. It is about giving people a good experience, and then they will come back. This model is actually geared for the market that we are in, and will work well in this recession.”

The nightclub is just one piece of a larger jigsaw for the complex, however. Wright has developed two adjacent buildings at the retail park, which is based in Swords, comprising more than 140,000 square feet of floor space.

In addition to housing the four-storey nightclub, the first building will also contain restaurants and a coffee shop.

TGI Friday’s, the restaurant chain, has already signed up as an anchor tenant, while a pizzeria operator and a coffee shop chain have also taken outlets. Negotiations are ongoing for the two other restaurant sites, according to Wright.

Wright is also in the process of leasing out units in the second building. A number of casino operators are looking at taking a floor in the building, while the entrepreneur is also in talks with a boutique gym operator about opening a fitness centre.

A deal for the ground floor, a 9,000 square foot retail outlet, is with the lawyers, and should be concluded soon, Wright said. ‘‘Everything going to plan, the buildings should be fully occupied within nine months.

‘‘The whole development ties in well together. If you come here for a night out, you will have the choice of three or four different types of restaurant.

You can go to a casino, go to a gig, a bar or a nightclub. The ambition was to create a night-time experience that was greater than anything else in Ireland, and I think we have succeeded.”

Wright said he did not expect the venue’s location in a retail park in north Dublin to put off the crowds. He said most nightclub venues around the world were outside city centres.

In addition, he said, there were now more than 275,000 people in the greater Fingal area, with some 50,000 people in Swords.

He added that he had already agreed standard fare deals with local taxi companies for journeys to and from the venue.

‘‘We are not just looking at customers from the northside of Dublin, though. With the Port Tunnel, you can get from O’Connell Bridge to here in nine minutes. We hope that people will come here from all over,” he said.

‘‘We would like to think that people would fly in from places like Manchester to come here.

There is a hotel next door and the airport is five minutes away. We have built this club to the best specifications in the world.”

Wright is not taking his eye off his other outlets, though. Having originally taken over the Bloody Stream in Howth in 1996, he now owns a chain of six pubs around Swords, Malahide and Howth with annual revenues of more than €20 million.

In addition to the Bloody Stream and Wright’s Cafe Bar in Swords, he also owns Gilbert & Wright pubs in Malah id e and Swords , t h e Findlater pub in Howth and the Angler’s Rest at Chapelizod. ‘ ‘We are working very hard to keep the pubs busy at the moment,” he said. ‘‘We are seeing a slight downturn, but it is more in food than in drink. But we have to be innovative to stay ahead.

‘‘We have different things running on different nights. We have got the Sopranos running on Monday nights with free pizza. Creativity is the key.”

The Gilbert &Wright brand is a case in point. The two pubs are based on a 1970s decor style, with everything from wallpaper to furnishings fitting the era.

Wright said the brand had attracted a lot of new female customers, who felt comfortable in the easygoing surroundings. ‘‘It is a 1970s retro neighborhood bar. It just seems to work,” said Wright.

The expansion will not stop here, however. With his general manager, Alan Clancy, Wright is now planning further forays into the pub business.

The Wright Bar Group is currently working with Trinity College, Dublin, to open a new pub near College Green, and the college has recently applied for planning permission.

‘‘We will be dipping our toe in the city centre market for the first time,” he said. ‘‘We have an interesting concept for what we want to do there. It is a great site, it fronts on to College Green and backs on to Temple Bar. It is a very exciting project.”

Wright also has his eye on Dublin Airport, and said he would be tendering to operate the new bars in terminal two. He said he had tendered for bars in the airport before, but had been unsuccessful.

‘‘It is in our back garden and we will be tendering again. Dublin Airport needs competition. There is only one operator out there, and it needs a second operator to shake it up. Dublin pubs are known all over the world, but the bars in Dublin Airport don’t reflect what Dublin is about,” he said.

Wright got into the pub industry after spending six years behind a bar in New York in the early 1980s. ‘‘I worked for a Donegal woman, Kathleen McNulty,” he said.

‘‘She taught me pretty much everything I know. She told me how to make drinks and, more important, how a bar works. She taught me how to create an atmosphere in a bar. All that she taught me, I still use today.”

In addition, it allowed him to build some personal cash. ‘‘I was earning $1,400 a week as a bartender in 1982. My brother was running the family company and he was earning IR£160 a week,” he said. On his return, he put his money into a nightclub on Leeson Street with businessman Louis Murray before eventually buying the Bloody Stream.

By the end of this year, he estimates that the Wright Pub Group will employ close to 300 people.

‘‘The pub business is all about relationships, atmosphere and people. I am passionate about what I do. I enjoy the creative aspect of putting a pub or a club together,” he said. Away from business, Wright also has some pressing engagements.

His wife, Kim, will give birth to their sixth child in four weeks’ time, and the entrepreneur reckons he will will be spending more time working from home in the near future.

‘‘I’m going to get back to spending a lot of time in the garden and playgrounds,” he said.

Source

Sizzler

Carter12 wrote: »

400 turned away the first night. That wont last long methinks

If thats the way they are treating people then it deserves to fail. That will leave a sore taste in the mouth for people and rightly so.

LOL at the article where he expects to attract people from all over, including the UK. Crazy stuff. Imagine coming all the way from Manchester to be dropped off at a club opposite Atlantic homecare and sandwiched between a clinic and a chevrolet garage :eek: Know your audience, if he wanted to have a Vegas nightclub, then build the bloody thing in Vegas FFS.

Were they charging people in at €15 a pop?

dsmythy

Sizzler wrote: »

If thats the way they are treating people then it deserves to fail. That will leave a sore taste in the mouth for people and rightly so.

LOL at the article where he expects to attract people from all over, including the UK. Crazy stuff. Imagine coming all the way from Manchester to be dropped off at a club opposite Atlantic homecare and sandwiched between a clinic and a chevrolet garage :eek: Know your audience, if he wanted to have a Vegas nightclub, then build the bloody thing in Vegas FFS.

Were they charging people in at €15 a pop?

15 is the price alright. It would be some sight a group of lads coming from the UK to go to this place and then getting refused

Presumably as the weeks go by they will be forced into refusing less people if they want to fill the place. I might have a look then. I may even be happy to pay the 15 Euro if the drinks aren't higher in price than the rest of the region.

Sizzler

I can see it now
Eastern European bouncer -"Sorry lads, regulars only"
Swords Local - "But I've been shopping in B&Q for years, I am a regular"

LOL at people coming from Manchester to get turned away. I mean WTF, how do you even think about wanting to go to a sham place like this when you can toss a coin whether or not they are in the mood to let you have the privilege of paying 15 lids to get in!

the_syco

‘‘We abandoned convention and tradition with this place,” Wright said. ‘‘Look around you - have you ever seen everything like this in Ireland before?” He certainly has a point. Spread over four floors, the Wright Venue can cater for more than 2,000 people and includes a club, luxury suites, numerous lounges, a live venue and a penthouse bar.

Yes. Time, in Naas.

Instead of cloakroom tickets, the Wright Venue has installed biometric fingerprint technology.

I'd pay money to be there when that system fails, and there's 700 or so people looking to get their coats...

Wright said he did not expect the venue’s location in a retail park in north Dublin to put off the crowds. He said most nightclub venues around the world were outside city centres.

In addition, he said, there were now more than 275,000 people in the greater Fingal area, with some 50,000 people in Swords.

Most with no way to get to it directly, aside from paying €20 for a taxi. And even then you may not get in...

Davy

the_syco wrote: »

I'd pay money to be there when that system fails, and there's 700 or so people looking to get their coats...

Tomangoes has been using finger prints for awhile for cloakroom. Takes your photo aswell.

sharkman

Jealousy and begrudgery are still alive and well in Ireland .

Fair play to him , I for one hope it works . To qoute blueeyedboy "Its a positive result for the entire area".

Bluetonic

sharkman wrote: »

Jealousy and begrudgery are still alive and well in Ireland .

People are just being realistic and honest, there is no jealousy or begrudgery in that. Although having been invited to a free night there I can see how you might have come to those conclusions.

Ginny

TBH as a local I'd have to be dragged kicking and screaming in there, the whole idea is still stuck in that awful celtic tiger mindset, of "You're lucky we're letting you in and accepting your money".
There is no way in hell I'd get a taxi over there to be turned away.
If they keep turning away people the news will spread and people won't bother their arse heading over, there's alway velvet and the Old Boro in the village..

Clare Bear

sharkman wrote: »

Jealousy and begrudgery are still alive and well in Ireland .

Fair play to him , I for one hope it works . To qoute blueeyedboy "Its a positive result for the entire area".

Hardly. I for one hoped it would be a positive thing for the area, seeing as when I am dragged to a local nightclub it's usually Tamangos I was hoping this new club would be good. But I won't be going back there. Rude staff and thinking they're too good to let the average Joe in isn't a place I want to give my money to.

PCros

I heard that they are going to start up a free shuttle bus in the near future bringing you to and from the old and new Wrights.

Sizzler

sharkman wrote: »

Jealousy and begrudgery are still alive and well in Ireland .

Fair play to him , I for one hope it works . To qoute blueeyedboy "Its a positive result for the entire area".

Hardly. If people's opinions are being interpreted as jealous etc. just because you dont agree with them then we might as well just close down boards :rolleyes:

Ginny wrote: »

TBH as a local I'd have to be dragged kicking and screaming in there, the whole idea is still stuck in that awful celtic tiger mindset, of "You're lucky we're letting you in and accepting your money".

On the basis of last saturdays refusuals you can already see the silly pretentious mindset seeping from the place, those places should only exist in a Ross O'Carroll Kelly book, no place for them, least not in Swords!

PCros wrote: »

I heard that they are going to start up a free shuttle bus in the near future bringing you to and from the old and new Wrights.

So you can get refused :pac: They'll need a bigger bus going back into Swords by the sounds of it LOL

PCros

Bluetonic wrote: »

People are just being realistic and honest, there is no jealousy or begrudgery in that. Although having been invited to a free night there I can see how you might have come to those conclusions.

I think the sharkman was also referring to the 300 jobs that have come out of the new club opening, Swords has been hit very hard with redundancies in the Airport etc.

TheBlock

**** that ****e I'll be staying in the Kinsealy Inn with a few large bottles,sure don't we have Live Music on Saturday

I'm sure I'm his target audience aswell. Male pint bottle drinker small family large wife to feed.

TheBlock

PCros wrote: »

I think the sharkman was also referring to the 300 jobs that have come out of the new club opening, Swords has been hit very hard with redundancies in the Airport etc.

300 Jobs in overall Pub Group (optimistic I think). I'm sure there aren't 300 peope working in a night club that opens on Friday and Saturday.

PCros

TheBlock wrote: »

300 Jobs in overall Pub Group (optimistic I think). I'm sure there aren't 300 peope working in a night club that opens on Friday and Saturday.

Nope 100 fulltime and 200 part time, its open during the week for corporate outings.

Also you have to include TGI Fridays and possibly another restaurant going in soon.

TheBlock

The venue will open two nights a week initially - Friday and Saturday - with a view to opening on other nights in the coming months.

However, Wright said he expected to have various functions and events to keep the place ticking over for the rest of the week.

‘‘We will operate as a live venue on some of the other nights. We hope to get product launches, fashion shows and company events. We even think we can cater for weddings. We have the scope here to do pretty much everything. The business case stacks up,” he said.


Seems to me that he needs to get his buisness head on then if he's employeed 100 fulltime staff for a club that he himself says will only initially open for 2 nights and Hopes to have Corporate business for during the week (Very Unlikely in a recession).

By the end of this year, he estimates that the Wright Pub Group will employ close to 300 people.

Seems clear enough that the 300 figure mentioned is for the overall group. If it was 300 purley in Airside it would not have escaped him taht his employement in the area had been understated.

Bluetonic

PCros wrote: »

I think the sharkman was also referring to the 300 jobs that have come out of the new club opening, Swords has been hit very hard with redundancies in the Airport etc.

I'm referring purely to the comment I quoted from him and I'm sure he's referring only to the opinions of people on here, not talking about jobs.

PCros

Bluetonic wrote: »

I'm referring purely to the comment I quoted from him and I'm sure he's referring only to the opinions of people on here, not talking about jobs.

Either way I thinks its a great boost for Swords, hopefully there will more jobs to come in the near future!