At Proper Hotels, Come For Vacation, Stay For The Live Music

Imagine you head to Santa Monica or Austin on business, and you are booked into a Proper Hotel. Looking to unwind, grab food, you have a meeting, whatever, and you head to the restaurant or bar and there is Phantogram playing, or Anderson Paak. DJing.

This is the new reality as the music and hotel industries increasingly understand the symmetry between the two worlds. Musicians bring customers with them wherever they go, and hotels have built-in clienteles looking for things to do. Why not introduce them to each other?

As I found in talking to hotels around the country (a full roundup is coming soon), the idea of live music on properties is an increasingly common and advanced practice, with some venues, like Rockaway Hotel, in New York, hosting full shows.

With properties in several major locations – LA, Santa Monica, Austin, San Francisco, Montauk, Miami, Palm Springs and more – Proper is uniquely positioned though to build on this dynamic by booking artists into multiple venues.

I spoke with Proper President and co-founder Brian De Lowe and VP, Activations and Experiences Casey Dolkas about the relationship between the two worlds. They explained that with wellness, fitness, hospitality and more, it is part of their Proper Presents program, creating a world within a world.

Steve Baltin: How have you seen the demand for live music change in the hotel industry?

Brian De Lowe: It’s interesting, because I think when we started in the hotel business, you know, at another hotel brand, our hotels were differentiated because of the design. That was what differentiated us, and that was enough, because back in the day the hotels got standardized with the Marriot’s and the Hilton’s of the world. And we could do something different that’s boutique and independent and design forward and people flocked, and I think to your point, now just having design isn’t enough. So, our hotels today are a lot more than just a cool place to stay with great design. They know they can come to our hotels and get the pulse of the city without leaving the hotels and music’s a big component of that.

Baltin: It seems like it’s something where it used to be you’d go into a city, you’d stay in the hotel, you’d go out and go back to the hotel that night. But now the hotel has become where you go for the entertainment.

De Lowe: Yeah, we’re creating spaces and experiences, so you don’t have to leave. You wake up, you don’t have to leave to go to the gym because we have an incredible fitness center, amazing wellness amenities like cold plunges and saunas and red-light therapy and all that. You don’t have to leave to get coffee because we partner with a great coffee brand and we have a great breakfast in the lobby and then you don’t have to leave for meetings because everyone wants to come to you because our lobbies are so beautiful and all that. And then of course, Casey will talk more about Proper Presents, but what really keeps you is all the cultural programming.

Casey Dolkas: You said you’re familiar with Santa Monica Proper. Austin Proper obviously is a huge music scene. And my favorite thing about Austin Proper is watching guests, we have many different food and beverage outlets and spaces, right? So, imagine a guest going there for dinner and then naturally there as they’re walking out, they get sucked into this space because they want to grab a drink and there’s music. They find this pocket of this lounge where they can grab a different drink and hear a different vibe of music here and then going upstairs. So that’s my favorite thing about Austin Proper and Santa Monica has a great opportunity for that as well. So, in terms of music, even just subconsciously, that guest, whether you’re staying at the hotel or you’re just a local coming for dinner to experience, you end up just getting sucked into the environment, the energy.

Baltin: I imagine the artists love it as well because it brings them to a new audience.

Dolkas: Definitely, that’s definitely one of my favorite parts. And that’s how Proper Presents was born. Last year, we wanted our cultural programming platform to have an identity. That became Proper Presents. Within Proper Presents, we have different categories. There’s health, wellness, fitness, culinary, panels and conversations. And then, of course, music, which we find is really the heartbeat of Proper Presents. And yeah, you nailed it. I think it’s so amazing to see someone like Phantogram or Neil Frances putting them in these spaces where they might have a built-in audience already coming to Proper to see this very special intimate performance or on the contrary, discovery. So, if you’re a hotel guest traveling and you’re walking out of the lobby and you happen to see Phantogram or Neil Frances performing, that’s going to be something that you’re going to remember.

Baltin: It is a very mutual relationship because obviously people are coming into the hotel to see a Phantogram. Then hopefully they come back on the weekend to check it out, go to dinner, whatever.

Dolkas: Yes, and that’s definitely how we always want to approach it. We want to approach it in a very organic partnership angle. So, for example, Phantogram was an album release party, Miami Horror’s album release party, Banks was an album launch. So, we always like to approach it in this very like win-win scenario where the artists, the record label, their team, they’re getting a marketing event out of it. We split the guest list with them, so they get to invite either personally or they know of our hotels and our guests and fans of our hotels already. So, it’s not just this mutually beneficial business deal. It’s where they know our brand and they know us, and they resonate with us. It feels natural for them to come because our venues aren’t music venues, which is part of what’s cool about it. They come and they’re comfortable in the space, they’re comfortable with the crowd. There’s a real sense of discovery for some. There are the fans; the mix of all that together is really special.

Baltin: Obviously being a hotel, you have a built-in advantage in establishing relationships with and understanding artists because you have musicians stay there all the time.

Dolkas: Correct. And yeah, we’re fortunate that those artists want to stay with us whether they’re on tour or in town for a festival and that’s a great way to partner with them as well. We love to support so if we are supporting their album launch, their tour launch, some sort of marketing event or promo for them, that’s the best way to approach it and it becomes a true partnership as opposed to just a paying gig for them. Then furthermore to support artists we’ve incorporated their new music into our playlist, so we love that if they’re coming over to stay with us or for the event, they’ll hear their new music within our playlist.

Baltin: I have to know for each of you, who’s the dream artist to have in?

Dolkas: The first thing that came to mind is Sting. He’s so involved in wellness. I’ve been a fan, since my parents are massive fans, I’ve seen him live so many times. So I think doing an amazing stripped-down sunset, rooftop session with Sting sounds pretty iconic.

De Lowe: I’ll answer a different way with a more random artist. Are you familiar with The Geographers? It was a band that I listened to a lot in a certain period of my life. And Casey came to me and said, “I just landed these guys. What do you think?” I’m like, “Oh my God, I can’t believe that. That brings back so many memories.” It was so fun to go and experience it.

Dolkas: We actually had them perform at Santa Monica Proper rooftop, which just fit the mold — summer sunset, ocean as the backdrop, palm trees turn into silhouettes. So that music just definitely fit that energy. And then he was actually going to be at South by Southwest. So, because that was successful, we had him again at the Austin location. And that’s something that we love to do as well since we build relationships with these artists. We’re able to plug them in in each of our locations.

Baltin: How many shows do you guys do per summer?

Dolkas: I would say a couple a month. There are two different ways to approach. There are these bigger moments that we have, which are under Proper Presents. But additionally, we also have our ongoing repeatable series, which is every Friday and Saturday, for example, with local artists. So, in addition to these bigger moments with Proper Presents, we also support the local artists in the local communities, which is a few times a week.

Baltin: What do you look for in the local artists?

Dolkas: It caters to the local communities, community being a major pillar of ours. So, for example, we have an incredible vinyl -based series at Downtown LA Proper in Calaverde, as opposed to Palma at Santa Monica Proper. We just did an amazing series called Women on Wax, which is an all-female vinyl program. And then furthermore, we actually encourage guests to provide vinyl’s to those who lost their vinyl collections in the fires. So, we added a philanthropic angle to it as well. Any sort of hook or theme, just to keep it fresh.