Last weekend, Beyoncé was paid $24 million (£19.5 million) to perform for 1,500 invited guests in Dubai. Somehow, I was among them.
Her set, which was her first live performance in four years, was 85 minutes long. That’s £230,000 a minute or £13,000 per head. And those millions are the mere tip of the air-conditioned iceberg. Queen B’s record-smashing fee barely surpassed my own champagne and beluga caviar bill that evening – covered by the host. This was all in aid of the opening of a hotel – Atlantis The Royal – which cites itself as ‘the most ultra-luxury resort in the world’. Never has a ribbon-cutting ceremony been so decadent.
It brought to mind the Shah of Iran’s notorious 1971 party amid the ancient ruins of Persepolis, but designed for Instagram. The last Shah, who referred to himself as the ‘King of Kings’, celebrated 2,500 years of the Persian Empire with the Duke of Edinburgh, Rainier and Grace, Imelda Marcos, Haile Selassie, Tito and Ceausescu in attendance. This time, Dubai’s new £1.13 billion hospitality jewel opened its doors to model Kendall Jenner (273 million Instagram followers), pop star Liam Payne, Vogue editor Edward Enninful and actress Rebel Wilson. Influence is measured in different ways these days.
Five decades ago, the Shah ordered 50,000 songbirds to be brought in from Europe for his big bash, all of which promptly expired in the desert heat. This week, some of the glamazons at Atlantis struggled with their sky-high stilettos on the freshly-polished marble. The hotel’s main corridors are intermittently bordered by difficult-to-spot shin-deep pools, which resulted in the Daily Mail’s showbiz reporter ruining her plumage.
Persepolis’s three-day extravaganza remains the most OTT bunfight in recorded history. Costs to the Iranian purse were estimated around £300 million (in 1971!). But Atlantis The Royal’s cheque last weekend – picked up by developer Kerzner International – must have tipped nine figures too.
As I say, I indulged myself. We all did. A thousand celebrities, influencers, media moguls and journalists were flown in from every corner of the globe in business or first class. All expenses were covered, and our travel was rewarded with three days of 24/7 top tier food and drink and entertainment. Bacchanalian doesn’t even cover it.
The 795-room property comprises six towers, three of which are assigned as residences. They reach a height of 43 storeys and afford views of the Arabian Gulf on one side and across the Palm Jumeirah to downtown Dubai on the other. The architectural aesthetic: 30 Bose bluetooth speakers balanced on one another, like alarm clock Jenga.
Predictably, all the cars parked at the entrance were customised Ferraris, Porsche GT2s, Lambos, Rollers and G-Classes. The first scent I got as I strode into the lobby was paraffin, despite the oversized arrangements of pink peonies. Either side of the entrance is cascading water behind glass, and every few seconds a fireball erupts behind it. You can feel the heat. Fire and water, I was later informed, are the focal design themes. The lobby is dominated by an almost 12-metre tall shiny steel sculpture of droplets splashing into a pool. There are a couple of floor-to-ceiling fish tanks. There’s also a tower of Louis Vuitton trunks, which I assumed was an installation and not just waiting to go up in the lift.
Marble is in the colours of tiramisu, and there’s a lot of it. Down the thoroughfare, carefully avoiding the hidden shin-deep pools, one passes the boutiques of Valentino, Graff… but I was just scanning for restaurants, plotting my gastronomic tourism for the days ahead (and scanning the faces of beautiful people who looked like they might be famous, but I had no idea. Can someone invent a Shazam app for faces?).
The next 72 hours would prove a marathon of opulent consumption. At breakfast alone, there were 960 options
In total, there are 17 restaurants and the names attached to them are as starry as you’d hope. Heston Blumenthal has set up shop here, as has Nobu (with the first Nobu Beach Club) and Peru’s Gastón Acurio – the chap who put ceviche on the international jet-set menu. TV chef Ariana Bundy has a Persian kitchen here. José Andrés – the man who brought Michelin-starred tapas to America – has opened Jaleo. SW1’s highest-end Greek, Estiatorio Milos, has spawned a sprawling outpost. Mich Turner, the ‘Queen of Couture Cakes’, has her Little Venice Cake Company here too. I wasn’t planning to start with dessert, but everyone is encouraged to try everything everywhere at every opportunity and I happened to be passing. The main dining area – titled Gastronomy – is a bit like Harrods Food Hall, and boasted a selection from each restaurant on the first night at an event called ‘The Feast of Dreams’ which probably popped a few sequins. The next 72 hours would prove a marathon of opulent consumption. At breakfast alone, there were 960 options (and smashed avocado on toast will never be the same again without a tablespoon of the finest caviar on top).
Really, all I wanted to do was sit at the pool bar, order some rosé and take it all in. So in I wandered, and immediately clocked Jay-Z. Six foot two, clad in pale linen, bit of a goatee going on, Basquiat-inspired hairdo ungelled and resting on his shoulders. Yeah, that’s him. He was drinking Corona, smoking a cigar and playing backgammon. Jay-Z travels with his own bespoke leather backgammon set. Two tables away, I clocked the security guard. So, having sized up the situation like the Terminator in resort wear, I feigned having no idea that there was a 24-time Grammy winner right there, and strategically positioned myself outside the bouncer’s eye line but with a perfect view of the greatest rapper alive’s board-game business.
At this point, a number of British telly types started to saunter in. ‘Pinky!’ I called out. Natalie Pinkham was there with a gang; the resort launch was a cover to celebrate Kirsty Gallacher’s birthday, and they came over with Jodie Kidd and Michelle Keegan. Soon, The Only Way is Essex’s Mark Wright and Boyzone’s Ronan Keating were encouraging tequila shots, still in that strategic and respectfully curious crescent around Jay-Z. It was fascinating to see the scales of celebrity at work and how they can fall away. Ordinarily, it might be a bit intimidating to walk up to Ronan Keating – a bloke I’d never met – and politely request a refill. In the presence of a genuine A-lister, though, we were all fruit at the bottom of the trifle.
Mrs Jay-Z – Beyoncé – was the cream at the top. She’d been using, I was told, secret entrances and tunnels for a whole week so as not to be seen before the gig. As for the mortals, an entire floor was given over to hair and make-up for guests to look their red-carpet best. The hotel arranged for many to have photoshoots in their own rooms, assigning more photographers than you’ll see at the Oscars. Glancing up at the towers, you could see the professional spotlights and ballgowned figures sprawled across each bed and balcony.
The Grecian-inspired stage was epic, and Bey opened with a rousing rendition of Etta James’s ‘At Last’, a song she sung at Barack Obama’s inauguration ball in 2009. She was accompanied by a 48-person all-female Dubai-based orchestra and an all-female Lebanese dance troupe. She was also joined in duet, for the first time, by her 11-year-old daughter Blue Ivy on the track ‘Brown Skin Girl’, before stepping on a plinth that was then raised high in the air to sing ‘Drunk in Love’ surrounded by fountains and fireballs.
We’d been firmly instructed not to take any photos or video ‘out of respect for the artist’. Best to ‘be in the moment’, and there was security there to help. Most guests complied, until the last song when proof was needed we’d been there. Throughout, we were sated by waiters wandering around with nebuchadnezzars of Moët, heaving the contents into our golden goblets. And then the most audacious fireworks display the Middle East has ever seen set the sky alight. Pity the people who were prevented from opening their balcony doors during their stay because of the explosives strapped under the railings.
It was less a concert and a hotel opening, more a Davos for millennial media elite. What might Alan Whicker have made of such a place? He’d have been fascinated.
Atlantis The Royal officially opens to guests on 10 February. Rates haven’t been revealed yet, but Jay-Z and Beyoncé’s Royal Mansion – the hotel’s 3,700 sq m penthouse suite – is priced at £80,800 per night, excluding fireworks.
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