2023-10-22 09:50:45
When it comes to nightlife for tourists, practically all major global destinations are well served.
Nova York tem a Broadway.
Paris tem o Moulin Rouge e o Crazy Horse.
Buenos Aires, or Señor Tango and Madero Tango.
Rio, on the other hand… “has nothing!” says businessman Alexandre Accioly as he walks through the Roxy, a historic cinema that is being converted into a music venue precisely to fill this gap.
“During the day, Rio has natural beauty: Copacabana beach, Sugarloaf Mountain, Christ the Redeemer, Lapa… But at night, tourists are very deprived. There are only bars and taverns.”
With Roxy, Accioly wants to place Rio on the international circuit of major shows, creating an alternative nighttime entertainment for the 17 million people who visit the Marvelous City each year.
The new concert hall will occupy the space that previously housed one of the oldest and most traditional cinemas in Rio de Janeiro, in the heart of Copacabana.
The Roxy opened its doors in 1938 and is part of the affectionate memory of most Rio residents, who watched classics of the seventh art in its gigantic space of more than 4 thousand square meters — which, in its heyday, had around a thousand seats (in a single room).
Once a reference in the city’s culture, Roxy closed its doors last year following seeing its flow dwindle with the pandemic. The owner of the property — the Severiano Ribeiro group, which controls Kinoplex — was regarding to rent the space to a large sports retail chain when Accioly failed to negotiate.
“When I saw that Roxy had closed, I immediately called Maurício Benchimol [o CEO do Grupo] to say that I wanted to rent it,” said the businessman. “He said they had already agreed to rent to this retail chain, but I convinced them they mightn’t do that. That would be a crime once morest the city!”
Accioly — who made a fortune from the sale of his call centers for Telefônica for twenty years — he has bet everything on Rio. In addition to controlling the Bodytech gym chain, he owns several Rio nightlife ventures, including the Qualistage concert space and the Italian restaurant Casa Tua, today the best in the city .
But as every 100 meters he walks, Accioly stumbles upon a new idea, the bets don’t stop: recently, a consortium led by him won the concession to revitalize and commercially exploit Jardim de Alah, an abandoned public park on the border of Ipanema and Leblon. .
Accioly and his partner Dody Sirena (manager of Roberto Carlos for decades and now owner of concessions such as Parque Villa Lobos in São Paulo) are investing more than R$60 million in the Roxy — R$45 million for the renovation and the rest for the creating the show and hiring the artists.
The renovation is complex: Accioly had to break several walls of the building to transform the three cinema rooms into a large open space. To prevent the music from invading neighboring buildings, he had to build a ‘box in box’ structure, a kind of second layer that prevents noise from escaping into the street.
The businessman’s goal is to create an unprecedented cultural facility in Brazil, which leaves nothing to be desired by the great benchmarks of this market.
“I looked everywhere, several states, and I didn’t find anything even close to what we’re doing,” he said, exuding the typical enthusiasm of a serial entrepreneur.
The Roxy should open its doors in March, following almost a year of construction. The inaugural show, which will be called “Aquele Abraço”, will run for three years (the period may be lengthened or shortened depending on public acceptance).
The show is the creation of Abel Gomes, the same choreographer and set designer who gave the world the opening shows of the 2014 World Cup.
Lasting four hours, the show will be divided into two parts. The first two are for dinner, which will be accompanied by a Bossa Nova show. Afterwards, the show begins with the proposal to transport the viewer to the five regions of Brazil, showing our folklore, culture and gastronomy.
The back of the stage will be made up of an immense LED panel – 30 meters high by 7 meters wide – where footage from these regions will be shown. Simultaneously, the dancers and musicians will perform.
Accioly said that his idea is to target mainly national tourists, who represent a large portion (75%) of those who visit Rio.
“Of course there will also be international tourists, but I wanted to create a house that was focused on the national, and more democratic,” he said. “In the show, there will only be one song that we don’t sing in Portuguese, which is Garota de Ipanema. International tourists will enjoy a great show of dance, light and Brazilian music.”
To attract Brazilians, Roxy is betting on price. The show will cost between R$480 and R$540, with dinner (three courses and drinks) already included.
“Abroad, any show like this costs around US$160, US$180,” said Accioly. “With this price we will provide accessibility to Brazilian tourists and guarantee good occupancy throughout the year.”
The expectation is that the payback investment takes place in five years.
One of Accioly’s objectives with Roxy is to rescue Rio’s image as the gateway for international tourists, lost with the closure of many concert halls in recent decades and the migration of several international flights from Galeão to Guarulhos (a measure that is being rolled back now).
In other times, Rio already had large music venues, such as Oba Oba Sargentelli, which was in Ipanema and focused on samba; the Plataforma, which was frequented by Tom Jobim; and Scala, which was in Leblon.
But the real estate market ended up transforming all these points into buildings, and the successive crises that hit Rio in recent years inhibited the opening of new spaces.
The Roxy is an attempt to change that.
In a city accustomed to losing, losing, losing… businesspeople like Accioly insist on turning the tide.
Pedro Arbex
1697994730
#Roxy #Moulin #Rouge #Rio #option #tourists
