Red Box lets you sing out of the box

It doesn’t get any better than this — unless Bruno Mars flies over to Manila and sings with you in the background,” says Walden Chu, the young and hip president of Red Box Karaoke.

Walden is talking about the latest technology that Red Box rolled out last November in its four branches located at Greenbelt 3, Eastwood Mall, TriNoma Mall, and Ayala Center Cebu. Now, you can sing Billionaire with Bruno Mars with his original music video in DVD-quality playing on the screen, or you can completely take out his voice, or just let him sing in the background softly.   

“The standard karaoke is cover versions,” explains Walden. “They would have locally produced videos that hire local artists who sound like, say, Lady Gaga for the voice over if you decide to accompany your singing. In our case it’s original, DVD-quality music videos, it’s a completely different experience.”

This is good stuff, licensed good stuff.

Red Box has over 100,000 songs in its database and, so far, songs in this platform number over 1,000 — and counting. The company’s music management team purchases the most in-demand, chart-busting and current songs. 

Cue and karaoke kings, unite: The most popular rooms at Red Box outlets are the billiards room, which can comfortably accommodate 40 to 60 people. Photo by JUN MENDOZA

For the past six years, Red Box has been growing and has gone past the usual karaoke experience. It’s now into “videotainment,” combining Filipinos’ top three pastimes: music, dining and gaming. Last year alone, it opened two new branches, in Eastwood and Ayala Center Cebu branches (with 26 rooms each), and began renovating its Greenbelt branch (with 36 rooms).  

Eastwood, the latest, is an interesting place. It combines both the private room experience and the bar experience, which is more common in karaokes in the US where you have a bar, tables and stage, and anyone can go up to sing. “It’s a new dynamic that we’ve introduced. Sometimes you’re in a group and you want to meet other people. You can go to the bar, have a drink and if you’re feeling brave, you can sing in front of strangers. You’re on an elevated stage, so it’s a different experience than singing here on the couch with your friends.”

What’s more, Red Box-Eastwood is connected to the new Richmonde Hotel — and hotel guests can charge their karaoke bill to their room, which they can settle when they check out.

Red Box, of course, is very famous for its billiards room, which can comfortably accommodate 40 people. You can have, on one side, the microphone hogs and on the other the cue kings. Then again, they’ve had parties where it’s SRO — 60 people having a good time and no one’s complaining.

Except probably the one who could never get hold of the mic. 

This young entrepreneur got his feet wet in business as an expat in Hong Kong, and in New York doing risk management for Ernst & Young. He first discovered Red Box in Hong Kong when he was working there (he loves to sing, both pop songs and praise music; you’ll find Hillsong on Red Box’s playlists).

In 2003 the Hong Kong Red Box people wanted to partner with Walden and his group, who had just opened Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf. “I told them I would help them find a partner, but they insisted on partnering with us. I did their due diligence for them here. We signed the contract and sent a team over for an initial planning meeting, all the T’s were crossed and the I’s dotted.”

Sexy curves: Red Box at Ayala Center Cebu has the laidback feel. The rooms have no angles — everything is rounded and curvy.

So the Red Box people did a planning week in Manila. And that’s when things got out of synch. 

That planning week culminated on a Sunday, the day that Antonio Trillanes bomb-wired Glorietta. “My guests happened to be staying at New World Hotel so everything was shut down. These guys freaked out. I took them to the airport, and three days later, they called me up and said, ‘We’re not pushing through with our investment in the Philippines.’”

Needless to say, that was upsetting. It was like the rug was pulled out from under their feet.

“We had no experience, we just had one planning meeting. Unfortunately we didn’t have a foreign concept to leverage on anymore. We had to decide quickly: Were we going to continue?”

Walden wasn’t a risk manager for nothing. He knew the potential of what he had created. And he really did love to sing. “We felt it was a risk we wanted to take.”

He flew to Hong Kong and told his would-be partners that he was continuing with the investment and wanted to use the Red Box name — the “price” the Hong Kong group had to pay for backing out. 

Six months later, Red Box in Greenbelt opened its first and very beautiful outlet, changing the way karaokes were regarded. 

“To be honest with you, we had no idea what we were doing. All we had was a nice-looking outlet with an outsourced technology. When Red Box-HK expanded to Malaysia, a few of the Malaysian operators came and saw the design, and actually copied some of the elements.”

That’s another thing that Red Box is proud of: its design. Walden commissioned Lawrence Howell, the same guy who designed The Scarlet Hotel in Singapore, “arguably the best boutique hotel in Singapore.”  

“We’ve learned some lessons over the years, we know what materials to use, which ones are a lot more durable and will be able to withstand the abuse or the good times that happen in the karaoke rooms.”

Cue and karaoke kings, unite: The most popular rooms at Red Box outlets are the billiards room, which can comfortably accommodate 40 to 60 people. Photo by JUN MENDOZA

For Greenbelt, the spaces are piled with textures and muted graphics — very chic, very urban. For Cebu, known for its fabulous resorts and beaches, the feel is very laidback, no angles in the rooms and it’s all curvy. For Eastwood, the look is young since it’s a market that sleeps late and goes home in the wee hours. For TriNoma, whose market is 24 and under (as much as 31 percent), they changed the operating hours, opening an hour earlier (11 a.m.) than other branches.

Red Box is also known for its food and drinks — all reasonably priced. The drinks list is quite long, too. Apart from the ever-popular beer there are mixed drinks (mojitos, anyone?), cocktails, hard drinks (Johnnie Walker, Grey Goose, Absolut, everyone?). For big parties, you can bring your own bottles and just pay the corkage, but the per-bottle price is actually very reasonable already (P1,500 for a liter of Absolut). 

“The reason we’re accessible across the board for head charge, F&B, is that we want to create a karaoke lifestyle. Ten years ago, people said, ‘Who would pay P150 for a cup of coffee?’ Now it’s part of Filipino lifestyle. We feel that karaoke can be the default entertainment option of people after a day’s work. In terms of what the karaoke experience can be, we’re already superior to our regional counterparts. Our aesthetic, our technology and sounds are already superior than Hong Kong.”

The funny thing is, there is no more Red Box in Hong Kong; they sold out to their biggest competitor New Way.

You can almost hear Walden laughing — and singing — all the way to the bank, maybe a Hillsong or Robbie Williams song.

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Red Box outlets are located at Greenbelt 3 (757-6188), Eastwood Mall (355-7921), Ayala Center Cebu (032-417-1675) and Red Box Star at TriNoma (901-8833).