Qatar World Cup offers its own form of luxury with VVIP experience
The FIFA World Cup in Qatar features something “even better than the VIP entrance: the VVIP entrance,” according to Lyall & Goldbaum of the N.Y. TIMES.
Al Bayt Stadium’s VVIP entrance is “flanked by barriers and cut off from the normal road system.
” The entrance is a “sweeping thoroughfare on which the most important fans, starting with Qatar’s emir, who arrives by helicopter with his entourage and then hops into a Mercedes, are chauffeured directly into their special enclave in the stadium.” It provides a “bracing reminder that there is always a more rarefied degree of exclusiveness.”
The main difference between the luxury and non-luxury seats at this year’s World Cup “is alcohol.”
At a $3,000-a-seat hospitality lounge at Al Bayt during the U.S.-England match, the bar menu “included Taittinger Champagne, Chivas Regal 12-year-old whisky, Martell VSOP brandy and Jose Cuervo 1800 tequila.”
In all, there are “five tiers of ‘hospitality’ in the stadiums.” At the highest end are “private suites that cost about $5,000 per person” and offer “six-course meals prepared by a private chef, cocktails served by sommeliers and mixologists and the promise of ‘guest appearances’ by unnamed celebrities.”
The “most exclusive suite” is the Pearl Lounge, “right above the halfway line at Lusail Stadium, which offers each guest an ‘exceptional commemorative gift.’” There also is a suite at Al Bayt that “boasts a retractable bed and a bathroom equipped with a shower.” This World Cup has taken in about $800M in “hospitality seat sales”
N.Y. TIMES