Hubris

Dubai’s $20 Million Bash

The fireworks could be seen from outer space.

So how’d that $20 million party at the new Atlantis hotel in Dubai go last night? Its fireworks display could be seen from outer space, Kylie Minogue performed, and Nobu Matsuhisa cooked. Samantha Ronson (referred to, by Bloomberg, as Lindsay Lohan’s “DJ friend”) mixed 1980s pop music, and Michael Jordan, Janet Jackson, and Mischa Barton rubbed shoulders with Middle Eastern oil titans. The Atlantis boasts a 1,500 rooms, a dolphin bay, a water park, and, at $42,000 a night, quite possibly the world’s most expensive suite. And yet, despite its excesses, might the party have signaled the end of an era? The state-owned company that paid for half of the party is in need of capital restructuring, according to a Citigroup report. According to Bloomberg, “The ‘Dubai dream’ may be over as lower oil prices will leave smaller fiscal surpluses among its crude-exporting neighbors to invest in the emirate.”