The two-hour event, featuring many topless beauties, attracts more than two hundred thousand people a year to a small village in northwestern Alsace. A social-entertainment phenomenon that expands year after year and attracts audiences from all over France and its neighbors.
Imagine an agricultural area, an environment like that of kibbutzim and moshavim, in our terms, narrow, winding roads between fields where herds graze, villages and small towns, whose rural residents get up early and therefore go to bed early.
And here, in a village with no more than seven hundred inhabitants, Kirrwiller, bright lights sparkle at the bend in the road, illuminating a building of impressive dimensions, urban in its form. This is the Royal Palace Adam Meyer Music Hall, the surprising “Lido” of AlsaceSo foreign to his surroundings, and so successful.
What is the Royal Palace?
Kirchweiler is located about fifty kilometers northwest of Strasbourg. Traveling from the city on the N4 motorway east towards Metz, take the Bossendorf exit (if you miss it, you have to continue to Savern, and return 25 kilometers east, as happened to us), and look for Kirchweiler – we didn’t see any signs for the Royal Palace, I assume there is already one. But we finally find it, and are amazed. Some of the abundance of exposed breasts of charming maidens, some of the phenomenon itself, there in the middle of the fields. In any case, it is worth visiting, and not just because of the “section” – next to it in the fields. And it is better to book well in advance, because the seats for most performances are already taken. On Saturday nights, everything is sold out many months in advance.
Kirchweiler's Royal Palace ranks third, after the Lido and the Poly-Bergère in Paris, in the all-French ranking of the major cabarets that feature revues, that is, elaborate independent shows. The ranking takes into account the number of artists in the troupe, the number of seats in the hall (Kirchweiler has 1,000! seats, compared to 750 at the Moulin Rouge, whose troupe is larger), and the number of annual admissions. When we visited, it was packed.
The crowd shows up in droves at 8 p.m. In the huge dining room, called La Majestic, “the royal,” no less, people sit at long, long tables, in camaraderie, and eat a set menu. When we visited there, an orchestra and a host-entertainer named Sergio, from Monte Carlo, who is mainly a singer, made the time pleasant for the large, popular audience, easily excited, who dance on the platform in front of the stage and respond loudly to the host’s refinements, whose humor was “grass-high.” The food is served quickly, and in abundance. And it’s cheap. Waiters and waitresses loaded with large, heavy trays rush between the incredibly efficient kitchen and the tables. Sergio brings each one up on stage, introduces them, jokes at their expense, and flatters the girls.
The Royal Palace also has “First Class” – a second, more elegant and slightly more expensive restaurant, which Versailles Its name, which is also spacious, and those who don't want to mingle with the crowd dine there. On the evening of our visit there, members of the Ferrari owners' club from Strasbourg dined at the restaurant La Versailles. Couples and small groups also come to this restaurant. But the majority of the audience, it should be noted, consists of organized groups of members of associations, clubs, nursing homes, small towns, workers' committees, firefighters, sports teams, and so on and so forth. It's a place to have fun with workmates. And this has become a habit. For example, the entire staff, cooks and waiters, of the exclusive Auberge de l'Isle restaurant asked the chef to take them there. The group nature is also the reason why there is no difficulty in finding parking for a private car in front of the Palace: when we accidentally left through an emergency exit, we found ourselves in a large parking lot full of buses.
The Lido of Alsace begins…
At a quarter to eleven, the audience was asked to move to the new and comfortable hall between the two restaurants. The show was about to begin. It was hosted and actively participated in as a singer and actor by the aforementioned Sergio. With his sparkling costumes, polished professionalism, and surprisingly powerful operatic voice, he dictated a sequence for the show that lasted two hours, without a minute of rest and at a dizzying pace. Performances by quality jugglers separate the revue images, some of which are innocent while others are clearly erotic. The sources of inspiration for the direction are light history, mythology, space, the way of life of different countries, and what not. It's all a good excuse for lots of music, color, and dance - and not always with bare bodies.
Even those who are not fans of this type of entertainment – perhaps mainly out of intellectual snobbery – must admit that in Kirchweiler, there is no compromise on quality. The fact that the Royal Palace operates in a small village does not make it provincial or amateurish in the slightest: the professionalism is evident, as is the great investment in the set, the stunts, the lighting, the costumes – and the artists. And even if the choreography is quite simplistic, everything is executed tip-top. Anyone who likes this type of entertainment is guaranteed to enjoy it.
The show ends at one after midnight, and the revelers return to the restaurants, to finish the meal, to drink as usual and to dance. At three, everyone boards the buses, and falls asleep, except for the drivers, one hopes. And the sleepy village empties within a few minutes. Many of the spectators come from all over France And from neighboring countries, like Belgium and Switzerland. They stay overnight nearby, and take advantage of the trip to Kirchweiler to “also” visit Strasbourg and the Wine Route. But some have come specifically, and they return straight home, in buses, each with two drivers.
The people behind the show
Pierre and Kathy Meyer, he is 55, she is younger, go to bed only at XNUMX a.m., after everything is ready and polished for the next day. They will get up for work at XNUMX a.m. He for general management, she for the central treasury, which turns over tens of millions of euros a year. It is not easy to be the owners and managers of this extraordinary institution, a success story on a European scale. Older and better people than me noticed the phenomenon before me, and French television devoted articles and investigations to the couple, aiming to crack the secret of success.
The story is “simple”: Pierre’s parents had a hostel in the village. His mother, a native of the village, cooked. His father was an elementary school teacher. In 1948, they built a dancing hall next to the hostel, as they say in French, which developed and gained an audience and reputation within a radius of up to 50 kilometers. It reached its peak in the 60s, and they closed it in 1975. Pierre, who had trained as a cook, returned home and began cooking. About thirty years ago, his parents gave him the business. The hostel offered meals and rooms – and he added a dinner with dancing, a Saturday night ball. The initiative was successful. He added a small, amateur show, which grew year after year. In 1982, he built a small stage. He cooked with his mother, and after the meal he served as a lighting engineer. The show grew and expanded, as did the clientele. Then he began to purchase ready-made shows from Paris: Pigalle Evening, Tahitian Evening, etc. At first once a month, then once a week, and finally all week.
In 1989, he built the first professional stage, the one that now serves as the dining room. Thus began what he calls “the work”: producing independent shows. He wanted to move forward, and was willing to invest in multiple rehearsals, in an original set that must be used for a long time until it covers its cost, and in artists. To cover just the production costs, he told me, it takes six months of performances, five performances a week, 300 people per show – he “does” much more.
“In Paris,” says Meyer, and there is not a hint of complaint in his voice, “you can put on the same revue for four years, with the same artists and the same set. Here, I have to change the program every year. But the year I put on the first revue, I doubled the run. Everyone talked about it, and it was a huge success.”
The place became too small to accommodate the crowds. In 1996, he built another 4,000 square meters – a large restaurant and a performance hall. “In the restaurant, it was uncomfortable to watch the show. People hid, had to turn their heads. People spend seven hours here. I wanted them to watch comfortably.” He designed new kitchens, more rooms for artists – that way he would approach 10,000 square meters of built space. The company also grew year by year, and diversified.
Much more than a strip show
At the beginning of each summer, the show is taken down and everything starts over again, with a new cast, a new set. Meyer, his wife, and even his teenage son would travel to Paris in advance to “audition” girls in order to cast the next cast. “I pay them more,” Meyer says – perhaps because they have to live in the village, in “boarding school conditions,” and under fairly strict discipline, and not in glittering Paris, if you will.
Since Paris is “the global hub of professional dancers,” explains Meyer, the troupe also includes Russian, Dutch, English, and Australian girls. It includes dancers who have performed at the Lido, inMoulin Rouge And even strippers from Crazy Horse. Girls who work around the world, on cruises like the “Love Ship” too.
Isn't it a bit jarring, in a place like this?
“A dancer is a profession. There’s nothing negative about it,” says Meyer. “There’s nothing really daring about my show. Bare breasts no longer shock anyone. It’s a show. Many retirees come, entire nursing homes – 80% are women… Most of the other spectators are couples… When I did evenings in the style of Pigalle, I added a stripper. An argument broke out with my grandmother. But it was the most successful. The strippers were fine girls, not sluts. When they’re completely naked, the lights on the stage go out. I don’t want vulgarity, and I rule out anything that looks vulgar.
“But just stripping – boring. At Crazy Horse I get bored. With us, the two hours fly by. A show like this must be funny, emotional, include beauty, dance. Everything that builds the show, the choreography, the music, the costumes, is very important to me.”
Between the show that goes down and the show that goes up, there are six all-too-short weeks of crazy work. Rehearsals begin in Paris, in a rented hall. At the same time, the home hall is prepared for the next show. Then the new troupe arrives in Kirchweiler, settles into the hostel rooms, and begins 24-hour work: technical rehearsals, show rehearsals, lighting rehearsals.
Future Plans
And it works. The audience, which grows year after year, includes about 75% repeat customers. But Pierre Meyer has no intention of standing still. In the two questions I asked him about the future, I hit the mark: he wants to build a large hotel in or near the village in the not-too-distant future. As for the casino, a field he doesn't understand, he hasn't yet received the long-awaited license to operate slot machines, and he will return to that in the future.
I asked him how the small village reacts to the presence of a noisy giant in its heart. No objection? “Why would there be? Everyone is happy. We pay a lot of local taxes, and the coffers are full. We employ a hundred people, most of them from the village. And when the residents travel around France and say they are from Kirchweiler, everyone has heard about the village thanks to us, and they are proud!”
Sergio, the versatile host, does not hesitate to joke at the audience's expense. To a man sitting in the front row, he remarked, "I'm sure you haven't seen anything like that in a long time" - referring to the breasts that were depicted in the previous picture. When I left, I commented that I was sure that the show posed a certain danger to the elderly, that the charm of the young dancers' exposed bodies could ignite in them memories of past desires, and cause a thrill that the heart would not be able to withstand. I said this as a joke. That same night, on our return, at two in the morning, to the hotel in Strasbourg, we met an acquaintance on the street, a well-known businesswoman, who has since passed away, and we told her where we were coming from. She hesitated:
“The entire senior staff of my factory went there one evening without me – I was busy – and the elderly accountant, who had already retired, collapsed on the way out and died. Maybe from the sights he saw. In any case, it was a beautiful death.”
Anyone interested in experiencing the show is welcome to enter. To the official website of Royal Palace, get more information about the venue and book tickets in advance.
And speaking of the lido…
If you are interested in these types of shows, you are welcome to visitMy article about cabarets and shows in Paris And get all the information you need about the Lido, the Moulin Rouge and other more and less famous shows that will make your evening in Paris exciting and thrilling.
And finally, traveling to Alsace and wanting to live in Kirchwiler?
I found you a lovely apartment and hotel not far from the Royal Palace:
Really great article
Can you send me an article or help with Christmas events, Christmas markets, and choir concerts, etc. in the Alsace region?
Unfortunately, I haven't had time to write about it yet.