House of Blues

House of Blues (HOB) is a corporate chain of music halls and restaurants founded in 1992 by Hard Rock Cafe founder Isaac Tigrett and his friend and investor Dan Aykroyd. It is a venue for live music and southern-inspired cuisine, whose clubs generate considerable income from world cultures, specifically blues music and folk art, and present a business model trademarked as "inspiration of music for the soul".

Overview

The charter HOB in Harvard Square in Cambridge, Massachusetts, which opened its doors on Thanksgiving Day 1992, has since closed (although the original hands-in-concrete driveway still remains on the property). Jim Belushi is also closely associated with the enterprise and is present at most openings. HOB Development Company, whose President was Jim Cafarelli designed all original locations. After Cafarelli left the company, the chain did not build any new restaurants for six years. Liam Thornton, formerly of Disney and Universal was brought on in 2001 to oversee new expansion. Liam promptly recruited Aidan Scully, an original Senior Ops Executive with the Brand, and twenty five year industry veteran, to utilize his expertise to oversee design and construction on the ground of new venues. Aidan Scully nows heads up Brand development under LiveNation.

On July 5, 2006, House of Blues was purchased by Live Nation, the world's largest live entertainment company. HOB has expanded into the casino business, working with Harrah's Entertainment to open a club in the Showboat Hotel-Casino in Atlantic City, New Jersey. In November, 2006, Mohegan Sun in Connecticut announced that their "Project Horizon" expansion would include a hotel expansion featuring 300 "House of Blues" themed hotel rooms, as well as a "House of Blues" music venue with seating for 1,500 people. The project is expected to be completed in 2010.

Locations

Current locations of the House of Blues include Lake Buena Vista, Florida; Cleveland, Ohio; Myrtle Beach, South Carolina; Chicago, Illinois; New Orleans, Louisiana; West Hollywood, California; Las Vegas, Nevada; San Diego, California, with the newest location opened in May 2007 in Dallas, Texas; A new location in Houston, Texas in the Houston Pavilions location under construction, [ [http://www.houstonpavilions.com/releases/Houston%20Pavilions%20Fact%20Sheet2.pdf Houston Pavilions Fact sheet] ] two venues on casino property including Las Vegas, Nevada (at Mandalay Bay) and Atlantic City, New Jersey (at the Showboat Casino); and two venues on Disney property, one at Walt Disney World in Lake Buena Vista, Florida, and one at Downtown Disney in Anaheim, California. (Disney was at one time a partial shareholder, according to "DisneyWar" by James B. Stewart.) House of Blues has never been a publicly traded company. Live Nation, who recently bought HOB, is. Plans for a House of Blues in Washington, D.C. have met with some opposition, with detractors likening the House of Blues chain to national big-box chain stores such as Wal-Mart, Home Depot and Borders. [Kang, Cecilia. [http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/29/AR2006112901532.html House of Blues seeks a D.C. home] . 2006, Nov. 30. "Washington Post", p. D01.] On January 29, 2008 "The Boston Globe" reported that Boston entertainment prince Patrick T. Lyons, in the midst of a multimillion-dollar renovation of his Lansdowne Street clubs behind Fenway Park, has sold them to the House of Blues chain. Boston's new House of Blues, with about 50,000 square feet, limited seating, and VIP boxes, would be unique. "Historically we have created these venues not to be cookie-cutter," says Aidan J. Scully, senior vice president of House of Blues development.

References

External links

* [http://www.hob.com/ House of Blues official site]
* [http://icmr.icfai.org/casestudies/catalogue/Leadership%20and%20Entrepreneurship/LDEN034.htm Case Study about House of Blues, Isaac Tigrett and Spiritual Leadership]
* [http://www.boston.com/business/articles/2008/01/29/house_of_blues_hits_lansdowne/ House of Blues Hits Lansdowne]