The cancellation of Abu Dhabi’s Offlimits Festival, headlined by Shakira, has highlighted the risks facing the Middle East live events sector as it contends with regional uncertainty, changing audience behaviour and pressure on cash flow.
The Colombian star had been due to headline the event at Etihad Park on Yas Island on November 21, alongside the Jonas Brothers, Ne-Yo and other acts. Organisers announced on Tuesday that the festival had been cancelled, but indicated that it could return next year.
The cancellation came on the same day that Christina Aguilera’s September 25 concert at Etihad Arena was also called off. Ticketmaster informed ticket holders that the event would no longer take place, with no reason given and no replacement date announced.
The news filtered through on the opening day of the Middle East Event Show at Dubai World Trade Centre, where industry leaders were discussing many of the pressures facing major productions.
Cosmin Ivan, chief executive of UAE ticketing platform Platinumlist, which sold tickets to Offlimits, said logistical uncertainty was forcing difficult decisions.
“In terms of Offlimits, the sales on our Platinumlist platform were very healthy, so the issue was about logistics and transportation,” he told The National on the sidelines of the event, which ends on Wednesday. “For example, for a show like Shakira, you need a big amount of production to be moved from one place to another and the deadlines are very tight for the artists.
“They don’t want to risk being stuck anywhere in the world, and the artist needs clear visibility and assurance on that aspect. So at the end of the day, a tough decision needs to be made.”
Ivan said promoters were also having to adjust pricing as they relied more heavily on local audiences, with more than 80 per cent of Platinumlist ticket buyers living in the UAE.
“We are entering a time where you have to be mindful of ticket prices because you are catering towards a more local audience who needs to be convinced to leave their homes, rather than international visitors,” Ivan said.
“We have seen this in the data when it comes to EDM concerts, for example. Ticket prices for EDM concerts this year have gone down by 50 per cent, with tickets now around Dh100-plus, and that’s the same for festivals. We are not saying don’t do these events, but you need to have the right budget structure for it.”
But the picture is not entirely muted. Genres catering to local audiences have been gaining ground, particularly Arabic concerts, where Ivan said ticket prices have risen by up to 30 per cent due to demand. Indian-focused events listed on Platinumlist in the UAE grew nearly 10-fold between 2021 and 2025, making it one of the platform’s fastest-growing entertainment categories.
Sports have also performed well, with major local competitions, including football and basketball, continuing throughout the year.
“Sports was the most successful out of this situation because many major local competitions, from football to basketball, continued throughout the year,” Ivan said. “What we observed in our statistics is that even ticket prices went up by 200 per cent and people still bought the tickets.
“The second area of growth is attractions and family activities. Again, in our statistics, ticket prices went up by 85 per cent. So the biggest-growing genres and categories on our platform, not only in the UAE but across the region, were sports, attractions and family activities.”
Those pockets of demand have not insulated the industry from a difficult year.
At the Middle East Event Show session titled Built to Last: Resilience as the Events Industry’s New Standard, James Payne, acting chief executive and chief financial officer of production company Electra, described the pressure of balancing budgets while retaining key personnel.
“Summer is already difficult for many event businesses because relatively little cash comes in between June and August,” he said. The disruption of recent months, he added, had effectively doubled that period.
“We’ve had around six months that we’ve had to cover. So that liquidity management is serious. It is about very careful purchasing and cost control. And ultimately, it’s also about cost reduction. So we have had to look carefully at our costs and be very careful with cash to manage that period.”
Shoba Hari, chief executive of Eventlab, which supplies front and back-of-house staff for UAE events, said uncertainty was part of the nature of the industry.
“A lot of people confuse resilience with how much pain a business can absorb, but I don’t think that’s necessarily true,” she said during the session. “It is about how quickly a business can adapt to the environment around it.
“If it is not a war or the Covid-19 pandemic, it is going to be an economic strain. It is going to be a recession. It is going to be a supply-chain issue. So we are never going to be in a world where there is not going to be a crisis. It’s just going to be a cyclical crisis.”
