How do you use music & interior to engage guests? 3 Lessons from a popular bar

When interacting with guests or shoppers, businesses need to do their best to ensure a positive experience in every aspect, both tangible and intangible. Food, background music, interior, service — you should take care of all elements to create a delightful venue atmosphere and strengthen brand identity. As a result, you will manage to boost consumer engagement, reduce churn, outrun competitors, and increase revenue.

An important thing to start with is to learn from others. This will help you discover new ideas and design your own unique concept.

In this article, we’ll consider how Pavillon Bar & Kitchen was able to provide a wonderful ambience that adapts to various situations and any time of the day. At the end, you’ll find the recommendations on how to use music and stand out from competitors.

About Pavillon Bar & Kitchen
What were the challenges?
Bar’s concept and implementation
3 Lessons learned from Pavillon Bar & Kitchen
Background music issues
A B2B music streaming app as a solution

About Pavillon Bar & Kitchen

Located in the heart of Lausanne, Switzerland, Pavillon Bar & Kitchen was established in May, 2016. Opened on the site of the former ice cream shop from the 80s, Pavillon introduces quality interpretations of cocktails, classic dishes, and late night pizza.

The bar’s interior showcases design craftsmanship and uses traditional materials to reflect the character of the surroundings. Created in the form of the round, Pavillon provides guests with the comfortable setting for having lunch, dinner, tea, and cocktails.

The bar has been operating for 7 years already, surviving difficult times such as the COVID-19 pandemic. And the concept was the key to success.

What were the challenges?

In the interview to “Lausanne à Table”, the bar’s founders were asked what their greatest pride was. The team said that it was quite a tricky task to start a bar in the center of untypical La Ripon square area. However, they managed to design and grow the place that attracted a lot of customers and provided an engaging experience.

Another challenge was to make an offer that adapts to any time of the day. From the very beginning, the team strove to create a place that would deliver a cozy atmosphere for a morning coffee, friendly lunch, a relaxing afternoon tea, or romantic evening cocktails. They also wanted to come up with a peaceful work corner.

Bar’s concept and implementation

1. Food

Pavillon Bar & Kitchen specializes in cocktails, late night pizza, and interesting interpretations of classic cuisine. In addition, the bar offers basic drinks (including alcohol). This allows the venue to attract different customer groups who may want to have lunch in a welcoming atmosphere or just drink tea or a glass of champagne.

The founders say the taste is their main pleasure that brings them together.

2. Interior

To adapt the bar to any time of a day and situation, the founders hired Julia Christ, an interior architect specializing in hospitality design. She suggested applying a holistic approach while saving the history of the place. The goal was to give the venue a soul and special vibe.

First and foremost, Julia Christ used different lighting techniques to make the bar fit any mood. For instance, pink neon light was employed to brighten up the room in the evenings. Large window walls, in turn, let the natural light in, giving an in-/outdoor feel.

With the view to provide more space, Julia reframed colors and made walls black. Utilizing only high-quality materials, the designer took into account each piece of the interior, from marble tables and wooden floor to the vegetal menu pattern. It is worth noting that every detail has its own story. For example, the silver cutlery came from an old hotel in the UK.

The bar involves a festive dinner setting and a nice convenient cocktail lounge. On warm summer days, Pavillon sets up the terrace surrounded by trees.

3. Background music

Music is an integral part of the bar’s brand concept. To ensure an awesome unique ambience, the musical timbre and genres played change throughout the day:

Daytime. 76 decibels with a playlist containing familiar, vocal tracks.

Aperitif time. 85 decibels with a nod towards jazz and soul.

10pm and later. 93 decibels with live DJs who play funk and hip-hop midweek. On Friday and Saturday nights, DJs play techno and many forms of EDM.

On top of that, Pavillon invites live bands to play music outside on summer nights.

Aiming to ensure a perfect sound in the venue, George Marchant, the head of the bar, prefers to curate playlists himself, with the help of experienced and already tested DJs.

“Music content is a massive part of the F&B business for drawing in customers, making them stay and creating venue personality. But the music has to fit the venue and it must have a personal touch. This is something that has to be tried out and studied, it cannot be considered a minor detail left to chance.

Spotify and all the other music platforms are ok up to a certain point, but algorithms are limited, nothing beats the unique detail and nuance that a music professional can add to the mix. Music curation is a growing need and a business that ultimately creates atmosphere, identity, branding – which all result in that X factor: loyalty.

Here we try to be sensitive to time and season, using music to bring out the best in both customer experience and consumption.” —George Marchant, the head of Pavillon.

3 Lessons learned from Pavillon Bar & Kitchen

1. Take care of every atmosphere element

Thanks to its careful approach and attention to every minor detail, Pavillon Bar & Kitchen was able to achieve success. By bringing together food, interior, and music, the bar provides a unique brand identity and delightful customer experience.

So, make sure every component works for you. Pavillon, for instance, employs multiple lighting techniques to fit any mood. To meet different goals, the bar has a festive dinner setting and a cocktail lounge.

2. Develop a comprehensive music strategy

Background music takes a significant part in the Pavillon’s atmosphere. The bar plays various playlists with different genres, volume, and tempo to satisfy guests, encouraging them to stay longer and spend more.

Music should also match not only customer preferences but also venue characteristics, brand style, food, physical environment, and staff tastes. To choose background music properly, check out an ultimate guide to this topic.

3. Attract experts to curate background music

By engaging professional DJs and local music experts, you will not have to spend a lot of time on compiling playlists. Meanwhile, they will tailor background music to your business, taking into account the target audience’s needs, brand strategy, visual style, and other aspects. This way, you will save resources while getting the best result.

Background music issues

George Marchant is absolutely right when saying professional background music curation is a growing need for companies aiming to gain a competitive advantage and drive sales. Algorithms in Spotify and similar solutions tend to switch on songs that disrupt the ambiance.

Playlists that last for even 30 hours get boring very soon. Manual playlist creation, in turn, requires not only brand concept and music psychology understanding but time and effort.

When using radio, companies have to deal with unstoppable advertisements and not suitable compositions. However, hiring DJs, music curators, and live artists may cost a lot. On top of that, you should play licensed music to avoid fines.

A B2B music streaming app as a solution

Music curation applications like Moodby Play address the above mentioned issues. Moodby Play is a B2B music streaming platform that contains an extensive library of regularly updated playlists and personalized stations compiled by professional DJs and curators.

The product has millions of songs licensed for commercial use. You can browse playlists with numerous music genres adapted to a number of establishments, from bars, cafes and restaurants to gyms and hotels.

You’ll also be able to order personalized music stations. What’s more, Moodby Play offers a mobile jukebox app that allows guests to request their favorite songs when having a rest in the venue. Find out what advantages you can get using a digital jukebox.

Moodby Play provides: