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Leisure Manager catches up with Lime Green Entertainment's Ram King, Lime Jam music coordinator, and Sonia Saïdi, 360 hospitality coordinator, at one of the company's open mic nights at Central Perk café in Jumeirah.
LM: Has the open mic night proved to be a popular concept?
Sonia Saïdi: It is, yes. Every Saturday we often get a good crowd of people here.
Ram King: And the thing is, we keep seeing new faces, which is good - it's not just the regulars. Word is getting round and different people are coming to check it out.
LM: Who are the people that make up the audience - are they mainly expats or does the event also attract local Arabic people?
King: It really depends on the set list and who is playing. We post the set list up online - on our website dubailime.com - before the event, so people can see who's playing and people are starting to be drawn more by the individual artists. And we have five or six new performers and it's great seeing how excited everyone is to be involved.
LM: How long have the open mic nights been running?
King: The Lime Jam has been going on for about four months now. We had the first one in April.
Saïdi: We have the events at Central Perk in Jumeirah on Saturdays and at Berts Café in Dubai Marina on Tuesday nights. They're both as popular as each other.
LM: Why did you decide to run this type of event?
Saïdi: There aren't many of this type of event in Dubai and people are looking for this kind of thing - it's different.
King: That's how Dubai is - if you run a business and you're not constantly changing every week, offering new concepts all the time, you're probably going to fail because Dubai is just so new and you need to make yourself stand out.
Plus we were just so tired of going to cafés and bars and listening to cover bands. You can buy the CD and listen to it at home - what's the point of even going out?
Saïdi: People come here to hear something different. They come here, drink coffee, enjoy their time and listen to good music.
LM: Why did you choose Central Perk as a venue?
King: Instead of starting off in clubs and bars we actually started out in cafés because the audience is more responsive. They actually sit and listen to the music, listen to the lyrics and when I get feedback from the musicians, they always tell me how great that is - to have people actually listening to them.
Saïdi: The concept of the café is really cool too - the Friends theme - everyone loves the show so it's a popular venue and the atmosphere is right for what we're trying to do, as well.
LM: At what standard do the artists that perform need to be?
King: There are no qualifications for who can play - anyone can get up and play a song. I'd say 30% of the musicians we get in are professionals that play around [at different bars and clubs] but the majority of them are just regular guys that work in offices of whatever - they have jobs and come home and practice the guitar and just come here and play. It's a passion for them, and often this is the first time they've been able to play in front of a live crowd.
You do get people that can't sing in tune or whatever, but this is what we do, you know? It's about artist development - we put people up on stage and we help people to develop.
I have one-on-ones with the other musicians because I like to keep in touch with them and offer them advice on their guitar playing and so on.
But most of the time they actually come back to me, or they'll try to meet up with one of the other musicians to practice. They're also keen to find out about institutes or schools where they can get vocal lessons - they actively want to develop themselves.
