The founder and chairwoman of the Lucky Voice karaoke lounge business, which opened its first overseas outlet in Dubai six months ago, has said she sees plenty of potential for the brand’s growth across the Middle East.
Baroness Martha Lane Fox said that the British-owned chain had been well received since its opening in The Grand Millennium Hotel in Dubai’s Barsha Heights in December last year. On a recent visit to the Emirate to see how the venture performed, she said she had been struck by the diversity of its customer base.
“They were young, so it wasn’t diversified by age, but people looked like they had come from all over the world and were really energetic.
“We’ve got bars in lots of places in the UK but it feels a bit more homogenous, the clientele. Even in Manchester or in Glasgow. So that was great, and I feel even more confident that there is room for a Lucky Voice here. Because it’s such a universal thing – the joy of singing.”
Ms Lane Fox, who was a co-founder of online travel site Lastminute.com, which became a bellwether British stock during the dot-com boom that took place at the turn of the century, said the Dubai Lucky Voice venue is a franchised outlet run by Lucky Voice Karaoke Restaurants – a business run by a pair of Dubai-based corporate lawyers who wish only to be known by their first names of Greg and Tom.
“They’re lawyers but they’re just smart businesspeople and more importantly they know this market really well,” she said.
The two men had been regular visitors to the original Lucky Voice venue in London’s Soho district – there are two Lucky Voice sites in the British capital city, with a third likely to follow later this year. They were surprised that a venue with such a universal, multi-lingual appeal had not been opened in the UAE and so approached Ms Lane Fox’s company directly about opening an outlet in Dubai. Ms Lane Fox has said she expects this to be the first of many.
“As I understand it, they are very aggressive about where else they could be opening and how many different venues they could have all over the Middle East, which would be really exciting,” she said. “I was sceptical until I came here … [but] I can absolutely see it in Abu Dhabi and other places, so bring it on!”
Lucky Voice has a turnover of £4 million (Dh18.9m) and 45 employees within company-owned bars in London’s Soho, Islington and Brighton on the south coast of England. It has a franchise agreement with Novus Leisure, which operates four Lucky Voice venues in Manchester, Cardiff, Glasgow and Leeds.
The company has its own proprietary karaoke software system that users can subscribe to for use via computers or smartphones at home and Ms Lane Fox said she thinks this has greater potential than is currently being utilised. It has already been used to create pop-up Lucky Voice venues at festivals, “but I personally think we could still be doing more”, she said. “Either through the TV with a TV channel through a network or media deal, or through YouTube.”
A report into the UAE’s food and drink sector published by BMI Research in April stated that it expects “sustainable” annual growth through to 2021.
mfahy@thenational.ae
Follow The National's Business section on Twitter
