Drinkers set to get hands-on at city's touch-sensitive bar

Published on Tuesday 27 May 2008 10:18

THE first "touch-sensitive" interactive bar ever to be created in Scotland is to form the centrepiece of a new city nightclub.

The innovative iBar has only previously been installed in five locations across the world, including Bangkok, Seoul, and London.

It sees the whole bar counter turned into an electronic touch-sensitive "interactive canvas", allowing drinkers to play games and write messages to each other over a pint.

The iBar is being brought to Edinburgh as part of the 2 million refurbishment of the Rutland Hotel, and will be included in its new nightclub to be called The One Below.

Other features of the new club, which has been closed for more than two years since it was La'tache, are to include separate booths with iPod dock speakers that allow customers to plug in their own portable music players.

The Rutland Street building has been closed since January to allow the work to take place, but is now due to reopen in the middle of next month.

Michael Langan, the general manager at the Rutland, only discovered the iBar when he typed "cool bar" into YouTube while looking for ideas for the nightclub.

He said: "The club used to be a cavernous, dirty nightclub.We wanted something really special to give it a kick.

"Without a shadow of a doubt this will be the coolest thing in Edinburgh."

The technology responds to touch and allows customers to draw images or write messages, then push them towards other customers. Messages can also be beamed on the iBar by the club owner.

It can also sell advertising space, such as the name and number of a local taxi company at closing time.

Kenneth Siber, co-founder of iBar manufacturer Mindstorm, said: "We've had only positive feedback from the bars that have used it.

"In London people just can't stop playing with it and it changes constantly, so that keeps people interested.

"It's a fantastic icebreaker for conversations as well. Your glasses can connect with other people's glasses, or an electronic fish can swim from one glass to another, and that can lead to people striking up conversations.

"People will be able to draw things like a heart and push it towards someone else you have seen around the bar. This will be something very new in Edinburgh. It is the interface of the future."