Lady Gaga will take the stage for the first time in the Middle East at Dubai’s Meydan Racecourse on September 10.
The 28-year old Grammy award-winning singer recently added the Dubai stop before she kicks off the European leg of her artRAVE: The ARTPOP Ball tour, which began in Florida this month. Tickets for the show go on sale on Thursday.
The concert backs Artpop, the multiplatinum-selling artist’s third studio album that was released in November. The album debuted at No 1 on the US Billboard 200.
So far, more than 775,000 tickets have been sold for shows at other cities on the tour – Gaga’s first after an injury forced her to abruptly cancel her Born This Way Ball tour last year.
The Dubai concert is organised by AMI Live, ATW Live and Live National Global Touring. Marco Rios, the chairman and chief executive of AMI Live, which has newly established a base in the UAE, says Lady Gaga was an ideal first show: “[She is] a performer with influences from diverse cultures, who is contemporary, dynamic, inclusive and a headline-maker.”
Gaga is expected to perform top tracks from Artpop, including G.U.Y, Donatella, Fashion!, Applause, Do What U Want plus all-time favourites such as Poker Face, Just Dance and Alejandro. But her explosive performances would be incomplete without those over-the-top, sometimes risqué costumes and dance sequences she is famous for. In 2012, a concert in Indonesia was cancelled because she wouldn't agree to tone down the show. There were also protests to cancel her shows in South Korea and the Philippines.
Becky Artmonsky, the co-founder and chief executive of ATW Live, says they are “working closely with the singer’s team to ensure cultural sensitivities are met”.
“Lady Gaga has always focused on her fans,” says Artmonsky. “She spends a lot of time thinking about how the experience should be for them. So we don’t know yet what to expect from the show. But we are working with her team to ensure there are no cultural missteps.”
The current stage layout of Gaga’s tour features “transparent runways which will allow people to dance underneath”. “Lady Gaga has created an amazing structure for her show, where the audience can be a part of the performance,” says Artmonsky. “We are going to try to do that as best we can. We have tables right up close to the stage.”
The organisers wouldn’t divulge the production cost of the concert, but say they are “giving their all to enhance the consumer experience”.
• Tickets are Dh495 for general admission, Dh750 for grandstand seating and Dh1,295 for a Golden Circle pass. Visit www.ticketmaster.ae to book
aahmed@thenational.ae