When Robbie Williams steps up on to Abu Dhabi’s Etihad Arena stage in October, he hopes it will offer a taste of what an extended UAE stay would sound like.
In the past few years, the Millennium singer has made it clear that he wants to be the first major western music artist to perform a residency show in Dubai, repeating the claim in several interviews.
This is on top of another stated wish to build his own hotel in the emirate.
“I want to be an ambassador of entertainment for Dubai because I can see what it is and what it can become,” he told The National in December
“I see us building hotels and doing the interiors of those hotels. I’ve got big plans for this.
“My feeling for this is not monetary, although I will welcome anything we make from it.”
Williams followed up those comments in another discussion on the YouTube channel and podcast, Weaponised in May.
“Residencies don’t exist in Dubai, they should. I want to be the man to start that,” he said.
“It’s easier for performers to be in one place. You know they can stay in Las Vegas for a long time and have their families there in one place.
“When you’ve got kids, touring is different.
“It would be great to invent something for people like me where you go from Vegas to Dubai, Dubai to Vegas, Vegas to Dubai.”
While the logistical benefits for artists are apparent, is Dubai ready to be one of the first Mena countries to host such a feat?
Striking the right balance
Speaking to some of the UAE entertainment and hospitality industries' key personalities, the consensus seems to be one of cautious optimism.
While they agree the city has the global pulling power for international artists and tourists, planning a successful residency show is more complex than the standard show.
This is an arena All Things Live Middle East chief executive Thomas Ovesen knows well.
A veteran of the UAE live sector, having previously brought the likes of Justin Bieber, One Direction and Ed Sheeran for mammoth sold-out concerts in Dubai’s The Sevens Stadium, he explains the residency discussion is an old song.
“The residency model has been looked at by myself and peers for many years, in terms of bringing an artist or a themed set of concerts” he tells The National.
“It's about trying to find the right mix that caters for the resident community here and tourists.
“It can be challenging to strike the right balance but some of the concerts that came here proved to some extent that it can work.”
Indeed, seasoned gig goers are already accustomed to prolific artists arriving in the UAE during certain spells.
“We describe them as a calendar of milestones,” Coca-Cola Arena general manager Mark Jan Kar says.
“These are the kind of events that people have come to expect at a certain time.
“For example, everyone now knows that between Christmas and New Year, (Pakistani singer) Rahat Fateh Ali Khan will perform in Dubai and the Coca-Cola Arena is his venue of choice because he has done this so regularly over the years.
“It's also the same with annual Eid concerts with some of the biggest artists in the Arab world”.
While arriving like clockwork, Ovesen notes they still can’t be technically described as a residency.
Achieving the mantle, he states, often requires a purpose-built venue or one heavily modified to suit the show.
“If we are thinking about Celine Dion's Las Vegas residency at Caesars Palace back in 2003, which is the show that really helped transform the city into a family destination, a bespoke venue was created for her, so it required a big upfront investment,” he says.
“And when it comes to artist residencies in an existing major venue, such as Billy Joel's present run at New York's Madison Square Garden, then the venue had to be significantly changed to feel like it is an experience you can only have at that residency.”
Finding the right venue
Residencies “are often led by the artist or by hotel leisure facilities,” Kar says.
“Sometimes it begins with an artist's desire to do such a show and then team up with a local promoter or company,” he says.
“While a hotel-led residency is often done with the full co-operation of the tourism board. This is the fundamental blueprint of Vegas.”
While Dubai’s hotels are more than capable of hosting concerts that make global headlines, such as January’s Beyonce show at Atlantis The Royal and the 2020 New Year’s Eve Kiss concert at Atlantis The Palm, pulling the trigger and hosting the kind of full-blown residency Williams dreams of requires more study.
Kar admits the market conditions before the pandemic looked promising for such an event.
“As a venue we attend quarterly workshops with the tourism board in Dubai, which look at all the content coming through the city, and the idea of residency has been suggested.
“If it wasn't for the pandemic, I feel that we would have had one by now,” he says. “Creating a residency also requires a collaborative infrastructure.
“So, these workshops are great because we receive data, which are not necessarily confidential, in terms of trends of when people purchase tickets and what markets they are from.
“This kind of information all helps when making that decision on whether to go down that path, which as I said, I think will happen eventually.”
More than just a big name
A successful residency is not solely determined by the star attraction, as proved by a couple of long-running and low-key shows in Dubai hotels.
These include the eclectic Arabian fusion sounds of Music Hall at the Jumeirah Zabeel Saray resort in the Palm and jazz joint Q's Bar and Lounge at the Palazzo Versace.
Both venues, launched in 2013 and 2016 respectively, were purpose built and follow a specific music theme.
“We look at it as a collaboration with the artist,” explains Palazzo Versace manager Mansour Memarian.
“Normally when we choose the artist to perform a residency at Q's Bar and Lounge, we choose them based on what we know about our guests and the kind of music they play.
“But also, just as important, the artist has to be open to the audience.
“They should interact with the audience, stay around after the show and mingle with the crowd. It is that intimacy that makes a residency successful, no matter the size of the venue.”
With Q's Bar and Lounge capacity ranging between 85 to 100, Memarian says having an in-house residency show is equally important to the hotel as having a lucrative restaurant.
“It is our trophy outlet because not every hotel has it. And because we're one of the first ones we will always be in the market regardless of how many jazz clubs that come after us,” he says.
“To be honest there are months where we don't do the revenue that we want, but we ultimately know the marketing value a place like Q's Bar and Lounge gives us and it has grown to be viewed as one of the many cultural hubs of the city”.
This kind of synergy is why residencies are often held in hotels. “Hotels really are the natural home for such events like Robbie Williams or smaller kinds of shows because they give a warmer feeling than being in an arena, which I would respectfully say is much colder,” Memarian says.
“A hotel knows how to create the right vibe to match the music.”
