Tuning Up Hospitality Industry

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When L.A.’s SBE Entertainment Group wanted a sexy, cool Italian vibe at its new Santa Monica restaurant, Mercato di Vetro, it turned to Allen Klevens’ music company to make it happen.

Prescriptive Music selects the tunes at hundreds of L.A. restaurants, hotels and spas. The Woodland Hills company puts together customized playlists based on the atmosphere its customers want to create.

So indie electro-rock now plays at Mercato di Vetro. Meanwhile at Umami Burger, a new customer for Prescriptive, the plan is to pump out old-school classic rock.

“We don’t produce elevator music,” Klevens said. “Our programmers are really digging in to what the clients’ core demographics are.”

Last year was a big one for the 12-year-old company, which has customers around the world. It added more than 100 clients in Los Angeles, which helped increase revenue by 22 percent. That’s a significant uptick in business compared with the recession years: Revenue was flat in 2008.

Prescriptive, which has 10 employees, charges a startup fee and then subscriptions vary from $40 to $600 a month. The fee is based on a customer’s needs, such as different music in every room or tunes at multiple venues.

Prescriptive’s growth was spurred by the company’s expansion into the restaurant business. Previously, it had been more focused on hotels, such as the JW Marriott at L.A. Live in downtown Los Angeles, and spas, such as the one at Beverly Wilshire in Beverly Hills.

Prescriptive also benefits when customers such as Umami and SBE expand. (Sam Nazarian, chief executive of SBE, and his brother are investing more than $10 million in opening new Umamis.) That means more venues playing Prescriptive’s playlists and larger contracts with those clients.

“We build as our customers build,” Klevens said.

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