Changing the tune of London nightlife

In Victoria, London, a district more associated with Whitehall than late nights, karaoke has found an unexpected home.  For Arnaud Studer, founder and CEO of BAM Karaoke Box, the success of the concept says something larger about how people want to spend their leisure time. While bars, pubs and clubs continue to navigate rising costs and shifting consumer habits, BAM has quietly gone in the opposite direction. Since opening its London venue in 2024, the business has delivered year-on-year growth, building on a model first developed in Paris more than a decade ago.

Studer did not arrive in hospitality by the conventional route. A graduate of EDHEC Business School and the London School of Economics, he began his career in investment banking. The turning point came during a trip to Tokyo in 2012, where he encountered Japan’s private-room karaoke culture for the first time. What struck him was not simply the singing, but the atmosphere around it: intimate, design-conscious and social, offering an experience that felt worlds away from the public karaoke bars familiar across Europe.

Two years later, he opened the first BAM Karaoke Box in Paris, creating what would become Europe’s first premium karaoke box concept. Today the company operates eleven venues across Europe, from Paris and Bordeaux to Madrid, Chamonix and London. When BAM arrived in the UK, there was no guarantee the concept would translate. London’s nightlife has long been built around pubs, bars and clubs, institutions that remain woven into the city’s social fabric. Yet the response has been immediate. “Nightlife doesn’t need to be loud or chaotic to be memorable,” he says. “It needs to be shared, immersive and personal.”

That idea increasingly sits at the heart of modern hospitality. The most successful operators are no longer simply selling food, drink or entertainment; they are creating occasions. Experiences that give people a reason to leave home, gather together and participate rather than observe. BAM has continued to evolve that formula through gamified karaoke experiences including Name That Song and BAM BAM Roulette, while a new format, Battles, has launched in France and Spain and is expected to arrive in London soon. “In a world where Londoners want fun that feels safe, social and stylish, we offer what I call affordable luxury,” Studer explains. “Our mission is to create places where people don’t just consume entertainment, they participate in it.”

The distinction matters. At a time when almost any film, album or sporting event can be accessed from a sofa, hospitality’s competitive advantage increasingly lies in creating moments that cannot be replicated elsewhere. The venues thriving are often those that understand experience is no longer an added extra; it is the product itself. As London’s nightlife continues to evolve, Studer sees BAM not as an alternative to hospitality, but as an expression of where it is heading: social, experiential and built around participation. In a sector often preoccupied with what consumers are spending, BAM’s growth suggests the more important question may be what they are spending it on.