Money can’t buy me love, but a well-written Airbnb post could win you a night with Grammy-winning producer Mark Ronson at Abbey Road Studios in London.
Yes, that’s the Abbey Road, where The Beatles recorded from 1962 to 1970, where artists from Pink Floyd to Adele have recorded and where the soundtracks for “Star Wars” and “Lord of the Rings” were laid down.
Even getting inside for a tour is pretty tricky, and most tourists get no farther than recreating The Beatles’ “Abbey Road” cover on the pedestrian crossing outside. But in the latest stunt by room-letting website Airbnb, Ronson – a local boy from the St John’s Wood neighborhood in London – will be entertaining a competition winner and three guests in Studio 3 on the night of October 15.
He’s even provided his own bed for the occasion – the first time a bed has been here since John and Yoko got comfy in 1969.
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A natural fit
To be in with a chance of winning, you need to visit the Airbnb listing by October 6 and tell them about a song “you feel passionate about that was recorded at Abbey Road and why you would have loved to have been there,” Ronson tells CNN.
His own favorite track – though there’s no extra points for choosing it – is “Tomorrow Never Knows” from The Beatles’ “Revolver” album.
Airbnb have been ramping up the experiential side of their offering of late, running a high-profile Live Like a Local campaign, and hosting showstopping sleepovers everywhere from the Paris Catacombs to the Great Barrier Reef.
Last month it celebrated the opening of the Sonos Listening Room at the Brooklyn branch of Rough Trade by offering a limited number of record-store sleepovers for vinyl junkies keen to live out their “High Fidelity” or “Empire Records” fantasies.
Ronson was the “natural fit” for the Abbey Road event, says Airbnb CEO John McClure, because he “knows the place intimately, as well as being a local.” He can advise on “what’s a nice pub down the road as well as what’s a great production tip to make the sound work in the recording session.”
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City Hosts
This one-off event is a sort of five-star version of Airbnb’s new City Hosts scheme, currently in beta. These private tour guides – with trials in London, Los Angeles, Paris, Tokyo and San Francisco – give guests the inside track on local scenes, from kite-surfing to cooking.
And while The Beatles put the UK on the international musical map during the “British invasion” of the 1960s, 60 years on UK music is still making waves. In the UK capital, the City Host scheme includes an introduction to the city’s grime scene – London’s hottest homegrown music genre of the 21st century – in the capable hands of a local record scout.
Kanye West and Drake are grime fans – Drake even got the Tottenham record label Boy Better Know tattooed on his shoulder – and they’re not the only North American megastars to be attracted to the London sound.
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“One of the really cool things about London is that when you go out, you sometimes see great performances just standing up on some pub on a stage,” says US record producer and two-time Grammy winner Dallas Austin, who’s worked with stars including Michael Jackson, Gwen Stefani and Rihanna.
CNN’s James Williams caught up with him in Mayfair at his newly opened nightclub Tape London as part of the upcoming episode of travel series “In 24 Hours.”
“I remember walking down Tottenham Court Road once, leaning in through a window and there was Amy Winehouse singing on a table.”
Spotting a million-selling soul diva in action is admittedly pretty rare in the UK capital, but there’s still the opportunity to sip cocoa with her producer Mark Ronson on October 15.