Beyoncé and a $100k-a-night suite at Atlantis The Royal

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — It was the talk of the town. Of the entire country, really — and then some.

Beyoncé was performing her first live concert in more than four years at a private event for the opening of Atlantis The Royal, a $1.4 billion luxury hotel and residential project eight years in the making, located on the outer ring of Dubai’s Palm Jumeirah, a man-made beach archipelago in the Arabian Sea. The megastar was paid a reported $24 million for the night.

The concert, which took place over the weekend, was the grand finale event of the hotel’s “grand reveal,” whose 1,500 guests included model Kendall Jenner, rapper Jay-Z and a host of other influencers, socialites and royals.

The event, footage of which poured onto social media, showed off some of the hotel’s larger-than-life features including a fire and water fountain that coordinated with a light and fireworks show for the Beyoncé performance, eight new celebrity chef restaurants, and a seemingly endless number of infinity pools.

The stats themselves are pretty jaw-dropping. The hotel, 43 storys of what look like gigantic layered Jenga blocks, is home to 795 rooms and suites, 17 restaurants and bars and a whopping 92 swimming pools. Rooms go for an average rate of $1,000 per night, and Atlantis The Royal’s top-end suite costs a casual $100,000 per night. That’s where Beyoncé reportedly stayed.

The 99-acre property built by luxury developed Kerzner International also hosts 231 ultra-luxury residences — all of which have already been sold.

“Following the gig, more fireworks than I’d ever seen filled the sky with explosions,” City AM’s Steve Dinneen wrote of the event. “This joyous, unabashed display of wealth is incredibly on brand for a city that prides itself on going bigger and higher than anyone has gone before.”

Atlantis The Royal’s launch is itself somewhat symbolic of Dubai’s meteoric economic recovery since the coronavirus pandemic and the emirate’s drive to become one of the world’s top three destinations for tourism, luxury and business.

Already well-known for its often over-the-top opulence, glitzy skyscrapers and record-breaking creations —like the world’s tallest building, largest Ferris wheel and biggest mall — the city that ballooned from a small fishing town into a teeming metropolis in just the last few decades seems to be making a new statement.

“Igniting the next chapter of the Atlantis legacy,” Atlantis Dubai wrote in an official tweet along with a promotional video of the opening…