Bringing you a sneak peak into the inner world of local and international resorts, restaurants, and industry players’ lives.
This month The Insider sat down for a chat with Chris Wright, an award-winning entrepreneur and international DJ credited with launching the iconic party brunch scene with his brand Secret Parties, as well as Ladies’ Days, and even producing a standalone venue called Mi Amie at Jumeirah Emirates Towers. We got the inside scoop on his tips for success and his vision for the UAE event scene in the near future.
- As the acknowledged ‘party King’ of Dubai with thousands of events under your belt, what particular set of skills do you attribute your success to?
Network – when you’ve been doing this game for as long as I have you get to meet so many people and grow your contacts and social media through the events. The more people I’ve met, the more doors it opens to finding and growing your customer base. I can put any type of event on for any demographic because of the long years of work putting it into networking and building relationships.
Experience – working with every hotel brand and venue I’ve had the privilege of working with lots of different brands old and new. My experience working with a diverse portfolio of concepts has helped me gain understanding of what the customer wants and what works and what doesn’t and then I can apply this to future projects. It means constant testing.
- Where do you see the Dubai event scene going in the next 5-10 years, and is there something you’d like to see more of?
I see Dubai opening up to even bigger audiences with the plans to expand RAK into a gaming destination, it will undoubtedly bring new clientele to the Middle East. It’s becoming more affordable to visit so more people have realised this and it’s becoming the new nightlife destination.
- Over the course of many years in the event field, there must have been the odd disaster story, care to share one of yours with us?
I would probably say when we had booked a headliner DJ for our club night and we had sold all the tickets and tables. However, their flight got cancelled and we couldn’t find another flight to get them to the gig, so it was full planes, trains and automobiles mode – we had to find a driver to drive them first and then charter a boat to the island – very stressful when we had 3,000 people expecting to so see their favourite DJ. But where there’s a will – and some luck – there’s a way!
- How do you think the event scene globally has recovered after COVID, and how did this impact your business?
With many of my brands and companies being hospitality based, the impact was huge and painful. Events and nightlife were the last thing to have restrictions lifted. Of course, I was grateful for how quickly Dubai moved out of lockdown and opened up as much as possible but social distancing was particularly tough when the main aspects of your events are socialising.
I think the events scene has had to make a huge shift. It’s been the most challenging time ever for us because we lost so much revenue during Covid and still had fixed costs to pay so that has been a big set back, financially it’s always a struggle to generate the same revenue with restrictions. I would say now it’s fully back to normal, it’s a lot more challenging as the pandemic has affected costs for products and goods which has affected overall profit so we have to work 10 times harder to make a good return but it keeps us on our toes and to push hard.
- Finally, as you’re clearly out and about at every event going, what do you do to switch off (if anything!) and do you have a hidden quiet side or hobby apart from your online persona that we don’t see?
I love to travel. My go to switch off is doing wellness retreats, it’s my favourite thing to do to completely zone out from the world and have no distractions – yoga and meditation is a big part of my personal routine. I like to travel to Bali or Thailand where I’ll spend a week or two disconnected – it’s amazing what you can conjure up when there’s no external forces. Just me and my mind is where new ideas are born!
For more information visit The Wright Group website or follow Chris on Instagram @djchriswright
