Area: . You know where Bund 22 is by now; half of our in the past year have been about things opening in Bund 22 鈥� , Tenya, the , the even newer , 鈥� the building is filled with restaurants. The one other club to try the place was the dismally misnamed Zeal, which finally shrivelled up and . Zeal had a huge space on the top floor with a big terrace, and it always struggled to make itself heard in Shanghai's cluttered clubbing landscape.
Cirque le Soir has a smaller space on the fourth floor. Thanks to its international brand, high-concept, and a colossal marketing push from six months out, Cirque le Soir will not struggle to make itself heard.
What it is: A boutique nightclub, filled with performers, freaks, midgets, aerial acts, sword-swallowers and knife-chuckers. Cirque launched in London in 2009, aiming to give guests an immersive experience that was worlds away from any traditional club formula. It's not a burlesque club. It's not a place where you sit and watch the stage, fingers crossed for a casual nipple slip, here the shows go on all night all around your table. Fire eaters, grinders, drummers, jugglers, freaks, stilt walkers, bubble-head midgets. There's a burlesque element but it has a harder, more twisted aesthetic. Imagine a burlesque dancer in a ball-gag or a gas mask... In London it has been hugely successful (winning Best Night at the London Club & Bar Awards for the past four years), and they launched last year in Dubai. Now Shanghai gets a bite.
Why do they call it a "boutique club"? In part because it's not huge. The space will fit about 400 at capacity. The idea isn't to pack people in but to offer a transcendent experience. They'd rather have 400 awed guests each dropping thousands on bottles of fizz than 900 bored nobodies stood queuing at the bar.
The club opens at 9pm, Wednesday to Saturday (the other days its available for private parties and events). A 9pm opening is quite early for a Shanghai club, so they're gunning for an after-dinner, local crowd. The shows will alternate with a DJ until about midnight or half past, when there's a 10- or 15-minute main show. After that, the place will assume more of a clubby feel, but with performances and shows going on throughout the night. They say there will always be something to look at, some freak or performance or an unreasonably tall man tottering around, something that makes the place feel like more than just a nightclub. Curtain closes at 4am.
Will it work? Other foreign clubs have tried moving their concept to Shanghai. and spring to mind. Those were Hong Kong imports that assumed they could waltz in and captivate us backward mainlanders with their flashy ways. Both failed dismally. of course launched in London (though didn't last long there or in Hong Kong), and has been hugely successful here. Cirque is offering something that we don't already have, and it's doing it very slickly, so its prognosis looks strong. (And it's not out in Hongkou鈥� sorry , you were doomed from day one.)
Atmosphere: The interior is shaped like the inside of a whale. It's not huge. Almost all the space is given over to tables, though there is a small dance floor right by the door (right in everyone's way). The main stage isn't huge either, but it's in the thick of things. It's hooked up with trapeze swings so performers can swing across the club, over the heads of the crowd to another small stage at the back of the room. At the front, there's a circus area, like a fair ground, with a candy floss machine, arcade games, punching bags and a 3-D photo booth.
Each night they will have five Chinese performers plus up to six foreigner performers from their other clubs (they will rotate in new acts every three months). They've adapted the shows a bit for the local market: Chinese acrobats, contortionists, table jugglers, a speed roller skater... The London venue is known for the raunchiness of its performances. They've had to dial that down a bit for China, but this is something they've had practice with in the past, with their opening in the ultra-staid Dubai. Expect it to be spectacular and freakish (white contact lenses, umpa lumpas, people putting condoms up their noses) rather than out-and-out fetishistic.
There's room for about 200 seated, and 150 standing. It's really not a huge space. Entry will only really be for those who have reserved a table. There's also a guest list that will get you in without a table reservation, but that's going to be full of friends of the club or past guests. For now and, assuming the club is a hit, for the foreseeable future, if you want to go, book a table.
There is a walk-up bar where you'll be able to get a few cocktails (and mixers for 100rmb, water is 50rmb...), but most of the service will be bottle packages being delivered to tables. Among those, they have "Champagne Shows": starting at 17,000rmb and going all the way up to 88,000rmb, these are delivered to the table by waiters and at least one of the performers, who then hangs out with you and gives you a private show and added face. Order the "Blackout Package" (30 bottles of Dom), and the club stops and goes dark, the lighting changes and your name is read out over the PA, so everyone knows how much cash you've just tossed down, and then a bunch of performers will come and hang out with you to make you feel Olympian.
Music: old school hip-hop and classics winding into house as the night goes on. DJ Kadwell is the French resident, and they have a Chinese guy called DJ Ring who has been playing at M1NT and 88. Don't expect the music to chart a unmarked course. Some of the resident DJs from the London club will come in once in a while, but this is not going to be a space for international DJ shows. The talent here will be the performers.
Big Sennheiser sound system. It's going to feel loud and hectic. They want to bombard your senses with different colours, sounds, lights and things to see.
In a couple of weeks when the place is up and running, they'll have a different theme each night. Wednesday will be "Cirque Loves鈥�", where they pick a different city each week and theme the shows and the experience around that: Cirque Loves London, Cirque Loves Vegas, Cirque Loves Paris, and so on. Thursday will be "Hype-Hop", a hip hop night. Friday is The Hangover Club, which is one of the regular nights from the London venue. Saturdays are "Cirque Classique", which are more dressy and traditional in their freakishness.
Damage: About 800-1000rmb per head minimum spend on the tables, but the owners will certainly hope most of their patrons drop a lot more coin than that. Bottle packages run up to 88,000rmb for that Blackout Package. They also have Cristal champagne on the list. No idea what that will cost, but the last time I re-upped my cellars with Cristal it cost a few bob.
Who's going: So far, investors and those hardwired into the high-spending highlife. The opening was last night. It was massively and meticulously over-subscribed. I went to the press conference before the party, so I could see the shows before writing this. But I skipped out of the party when it was getting rammed. It was your standard rotation Shanghai party people, air-in-the-nose pretty girls, rich Chinese in bad polo shirts, media free-loaders, gormless pseudo-models and Bob Lai. No sign of Jon Benn. Maybe he came later. Maybe he was at the VVVVVVVVVIP opening the day before.
For at least the next few weeks, expect it to be heaving with a well-heeled, deep-pocketed and mainly local crowd. As things settle down, I'd say it will be busy from early in the evening with those looking for a more spectacular, exclusive and expensive alternative to Muse, up the street. It may steal some of foreigners, but not enough to worry M1NT; they have plenty to spare. Most of the business at Cirque will be Chinese, or those with friends in from out-of-town, plus in-the-know tourists, club scene professionals and anyone out to impress.
Don't expect this place to be filled with cheap-ass "Shanghai Fun" Westerners backwashing bottles of Tsingtao. Do expect it to be a big hit with high-spending locals who want something more entertaining from their night out than a big, smokey room full of cheap-ass Westerners backwashing bottles of Tsingtao.
**Apologies for the rather meh pictures. They control the brand with an iron first and didn't allow our photographers in to take proper shots of the place, so we had to make do with the shots their guy took for us.
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