[LeBeau]

So a while back I did a thread on Rick Rubin, and the response was positive so here's the 2nd entry in a series on influential men. The idea here is not to do a "lifestyles of the rich and famous" but rather the "interesting and innovative" through interviews and choice links.

Here's the updated interview link for Vol. 1: thread-25307...pid1116500

While some members may not be fans of higher end clubs, or the man that popularized bottle service, there's still a lot of unique history and perspective here. You can also get a glimpse of some the methods used to rise through the ranks of the promoting/nightlife industry.


I would advise watching this Bloomberg interview first to set things off and provide an introduction, it also contains the bulk of the information for this post, unfortunately no embeddable link or transcript was available:

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/videos/b/f...cf96b4fd7b


Here's a short clip showing some of the development of his Pangaea club in Singapore:

And here's a more recent article and update since that Bloomberg interview took place:

http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB1000142412...0162556670

Quote:

Pangaea, though just over a year old, is now considered the most profitable club in the world with revenues of more than $100,000 per night in recent months, Ault says. It's also one of the most expensive clubs, with tables costing as much as $15,000, and the uber-rich regularly chalking up six-figure bills. He could have brought this extravagance to just about anywhere in the world. London, with its collection of royals and a party scene that attracts Europe's glitterati. Dubai, too, the land of if-you-want-an-island-you-just-build-one. And of course, his hometown and former playground, Manhattan.

But Ault, who moved to Singapore three years ago, says he "no longer feels the magic" in Gotham, which still bears the scars of a financial crisis that knocked the wind out of much of its most extravagant party culture. Singapore, he says, is another matter. This is where he says the rich feel, well, rich, and unusually secure. And where they seem to know only one common language, the language of excess—all too shamelessly displayed in his club.

"One night, there were these kids here—literally kids in their 20s—who all had their own private jets," Ault recalls during another meeting, on a Thursday morning, leaning back on a leather couch in his club wearing bright-blue fuzzy slippers embroidered with a pink skull. "Serious jets, too. There was an A380 which was converted to include a pool and basketball court—it was ridiculous."

"What I see here is what I imagined must have happened in the U.S. in the 1880s, in the Gilded Age, when it first took over England in terms of wealth," he says. "It is truly shocking how much wealth there is—and how willing people are to spend it."

There's also been discussions on the forum about increasing access to models and social circles with the most beautiful women, I found a quote from an old 1996 interview that shows Ault's awareness of how important this can be:

Quote:

''We have a couple of thousand models' names in our data base,'' says Ault, a veteran of clubs-of-the-moment like Spy, Merc Bar and Surf Club. ''If they need anything - a roommate, an apartment, a boyfriend, a lawyer, an agent, a place to sleep in the Hamptons, a plane ticket - you provide it. Then, when you call, they come by the hundreds. The difference between a local bar and the hottest club in New York is the models.''