The newly opened Hotel Rival
on Mariatorgetin Stockholm is an experience for all the senses. A lifestyle hotel that focuses on comfort in design and service, and the very latest technology in sound and vision from Sony
.  A hotel for business people who want to feel at home in a comfortable environment, and enjoy a memorable experience at the same time.

“The Hotel Rival is an excellent example of the ‘ready-to-use’ solutions that Sony can offer. Thanks to this, The Rival’s guests can experience a sound and vision quality which perhaps they don’t have at home”, says Björn Swedin, Divisional manager, Sony Sweden.

The three men behind the hotel, Benny Andersson, Christer Hägglund and Christer Sandahl all have wide experience of life in hotels. They have travelled all over the world and lived in countless hotels, though only a few of them have left any lasting impression.  They wanted to create a hotel where most of the attention would be paid to detail.

The heart of the experience for the guests is the hotel rooms. That is why each room has been equipped with a 32” plasma-TV, DVD and CD players. There is also the option of connecting a Sony PlayStation, which can be hired from the hotel. Sony’s plasma screens are part of the room design, designed by the architect Karin Ahlgren. Guests can even watch their favourite programmes and films from the bathroom through a glass wall, and can also adjust the sound level from there.

The Hotel Rival is particularly suited to conferences and seminars, and is also set up for TV production. The cinema in the hotel has 700 seats and also functions as a hall for interactive conferences.  It is even possible to record a 10-camera production with an OB (outside broadcast) bus and up to 144 sound channels.  The cinema is equipped with technology controlled via easy-to-operate touch screens, LCD projectors, video, DVD, loudspeakers and microphones. Everything needed for conferences and TV broadcasts is here.

The other conference rooms “Maria 1” and “Maria 2” are also equipped with Sony projectors. The largest conference room, Rivalen, even has two projectors and two screens so that presentations can be shown at the same time.  The conference rooms also include video, DVD and hi-fi systems.

The communal areas in the hotel are divided up into 5 different zones, where music can be played at different volumes and adjusted separately with-in each zone. All music is played from a central hard disk. Hotel Rival is probably the only hotel that plays its lift music in stereo. At the reception desk there is a wide choice of DVDs that guests can rent and take to their rooms.

Hotel Rival chose Sony as the main technology supplier for the hotel rooms, conference rooms, public areas and cinema. Together with the owners Sony is responsible for the unique end-result. It took six months work to develop the details before even starting to build the system itself. Sony provided expertise for both the audiovisual systems and the broadcast systems, as well as project management.
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