What the Heck Has Been Happening at Sky Garden?

Sky Garden started as a simple, forward-thinking, dining and entertainment venue on Jalan Legian, right in the centre of downtown Kuta in 2005. From those humble beginnings they have now become one of the largest and most frequented venues on the island. Sky has always had a trend setting, contemporary edge right from the beginning, utilizing dynamic ideas, design and promotional visuals and activities to attract a variety of customers over the years including expats, locals, and obviously a large bunch of tourists.  With the final stages being completed now, and with a firm date of completion locked in for this December 26th, we thought it was time the beat caught up with Marketing Chief, Sean Mac for a chat about Bali’s busiest venue.

How long have the renovations taken till now at Sky, and what are the highlights?  
Well, we opened in March of 2005 with only 48 m2 with permission to build a roof top bar above the 2nd floor. Since then we’ve leased the neighbouring building (previously MY ROOM) as well as the 30are hotel and property behind. Our eventual plan is to build out all the way to the back and reintroduce a 36+ room hotel, but so far over the last few years we’ve been continually busy completing the 3000m2 F&B concept floors over the four levels. We’re open daily serving over 5000 guests through the current five venues including Blarney Stone Irish Pub, Club Cyclone, Brandy’s RnB Room, Sky Garden Lounge and the VIP Gold Pass Lounge, but by December we’ll have four more areas completed and ready for business including ESC, George’s Sports Bar and Sky High Club. And right after in June 2012 we’ll introduce Bali’s first artificial wave promoting the new super charged adrenaline sport of Flow-boarding. It’s like Skateboarding without wheels, surfing without a fin, snowboarding without a mountain, and wake boarding without a boat…

Why did it take soooo long?
Wow, it has been a while hasn’t it… My first response would be that ‘nurturing’ was needed.

There seems to be thousands of people at Sky Garden every night, while most other venues struggle to find a significant crowd. I’m sure a lot of people wonder how you do that. What’s the secret? How do you do it?
We listen to our guests whenever possible. And yes, we’ve had our fair share of issues, but we’re adamant about addressing them as soon as possible. We truly want all of our guests to have fun and feel comfortable at all times. We want everyone to walk away with a satisfied feeling, having had a great experience overall.

Is food still a big part of the Sky philosophy or has it now all moved to clubbing?
Yes, we’re still very passionate about our food, and we still have many people dining with us every night. We still offer the same quality foods and still have the same legendary promotions like Rp1k Wing Wednesday, Rp15k Taco Tuesdays and Rp50k all you can eat Sushi Sundays.

How about the entertainment, what do you have on offer to attract the punters?
LOADS! On any given night we have twelve DJs playing in five rooms, live singers, fire dancers, pole dancers, go-go dancers, professionally choreographed dancers, models, MCs and more… There’s always some type of action happening.

Being one of the biggest clubs and entertainment venues in town, you’ve had your share of detractors over time. Things like security, parking and general Kuta style yob-ism have always been, especially, on local expat’s minds over the past couple of years. What have you done to address those concerns?
We’ve taken these concerns very seriously, and we’ve addressed them accordingly. Security has always been an issue in Legian, especially at night, so we’ve hired the best crew. Each is trained to introductory police level with certification. We also have the full support of many local police agencies to keep everyone and their possessions safe. Parking? Well, this is still a problem, but we encourage all of our guests to take a taxi if they plan on drinking. If people insist on driving, they may park out back along Jl. Mataram and walk down the gang to Legian. Kuta-style yob-ism*… Your words, not mine, but the Kuta experience is one of a kind… You come here for the excitement!

*Yobo comes from the word ‘boy’ spelt backwards; a common Australian term for larrikinism.

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