Beyonc, a $100k-a-night suite and a red carpet of influencers: Dubai basks in its booming economy

Beyonc, a $100k-a-night suite and a red carpet of influencers: Dubai basks in its booming economy

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — It was the talk of the town. Of the entire country, really — and then some. Beyoncé was performing her first live concert in more than four years at a private event for the opening of Atlantis The Royal, a $1.4 billion luxury hotel and residential project eight years in the making, located on the outer ring of Dubai's Palm Jumeirah, a man-made beach archipelago in the Arabian Sea. The megastar was paid a The concert, which took place over the weekend, was the grand finale event of the hotel's "grand reveal," whose 1,500 guests included model Kendall Jenner, rapper Jay-Z and a host of other influencers, socialites and royals. The event, footage of which poured onto social media, showed off some of the hotel's larger-than-life features including a fire and water fountain that coordinated with a light and fireworks show for the Beyoncé performance, eight new celebrity chef restaurants, and a seemingly endless number of infinity pools. The stats themselves are pretty jaw-dropping. The hotel, 43 storys of what look like gigantic layered Jenga blocks, is home to 795 rooms and suites, 17 restaurants and bars and a whopping 92 swimming pools. Rooms go