Dubai's Coca-Cola Arena shifts from concerts to shopping sale
And, Coca-Cola Arena’s first public-facing event since the regional war erupted is a sale—on shopping.
Trade visitors can also visit The Big Clearance Sale at the Dubai venue from April 1 to 5, a free-entry retail event with stock across categories such as fashion, footwear, accessories, items for your home and lifestyle products.
The sale comes at a time when the events calendar has been upended, but also reflects a broader need to keep the midsize venue busy in uncertain times, said its general manager, Mark Jan Kar.
“You cannot just let a venue go dormant,” he said. “The venue continues to have living systems and critical systems and regulatory requirements that still apply regardless of whether we have events.”
“Air conditioning needs to keep running. Temperatures must be maintained. There are still technical and safety standards to be met. The expenses don’t go away because the stage is vacant.”
Despite concerts being what most people immediately think of when mentioning Coca-Cola Arena — and with good reason, just look how many sold-out concerts by the likes of Teddy Swims, Enrique Iglesias, Maroon 5 and Alicia Keys have graced its stage since it opened in 2019 — as well as sporting events, corporate bookings and other commercial activities all year round.
“We usually have three categories of activities in the building,” he says. “A shopping event is just one thing in that mix.”
The decision to hold the sale came after a number of unannounced post-Eid shows were postponed until later in the year, Jan Kar said. Management resorted to contingency planning that had been deployed during Covid, with staff transitioning to a four-day work week and taking extra leave. Some freelance services have been suspended as well.
“We’ve always got an amazing team. They have to remain engaged, energized and their morale needs to be up,” Jan Kar says. “At this point, it ain’t about losing 100, it’s treating the 90 as momentum and demonstrating to the market that we’re still in play.”
Although management seeks smaller activities and attempts to return as much of the main calendar as possible, Jan Kar says there’s no point being negligent by not preparing for additional measures and cost-cutting if required.
That line of thinking also underlies the clearance sale, which the venue held for the first time in 2022 as the live events industry began to emerge from pandemic shutdowns.
“The difference here is that we are a public venue, so we have Covid experience as a guide for how we activate events and get safety in place,” Jan Kar said. “We know our end date — from the personnel, emergency and building perspectives we know our ultimate date.
“So maybe, at this point, we are sort of activating a similar plan to Otto, but actually faster because we know what works and what does not work.”
A similar approach is being used by the arena’s programming team in talks with promoters, artist teams and booking agencies. Jacob Kar says shows by Wu-Tang Clan and Josh Groban set for March 22 and March 27, respectively, were simply too difficult to hold on the calendar because of international logistics, while others — particularly hospitality or regional dates — have been rescheduled for later months.
For now the arena floor, typically packed with concertgoers, will instead be overtaken by discount rails, merchandise aisles, food outlets and shoppers. Kar hopes that other venue operators of all sizes struggling with the same disruption problems can look to this move as an inspiration.
“Whatever it takes,” he said. “Be a shopping spectacle for two weeks, be a graduation venue, or show movies for a year … whatever it is we need to be moving and keep the city moving.”
Comments