Let Me Entertain You - Dubai style

Quoted from: http://www.7days.ae/

'Thursday, 09 March 2006

Picture the scene: in a shopping mall, eerily empty but for a handful of security guards, three women burst through the doors at the crack of dawn.
Excitedly they race up the escalators to unfold their deck chairs to take front position in an anticipated queue outside the boarded-up main entrance of Virgin Megatore at the Mercato Mall.
Sally Brumwell and Jayne Cunningham from the UK and Maltese Miriam Asciak have on them everything they need: a flask of tea, a packet of Digestive biscuits to keep up their energy levels and several hundred dirhams in their pocket to each snap up six standing tickets to the first Robbie Williams concert in Dubai, on April 21.
Within several minutes, the trio is joined by another group of excited Robbie fans. Three hours later a queue of a few hundred of people snake their way around the first floor of the shopping mall, much to the bemusement of security staff and early-morning cleaners.
Elsewhere across the UAE long queues - on a scale never seen before - had started forming outside Virgin stores at Deira City Centre, BurJuman, Mall of the Emirates and at Abu Dhabi Mall.
By 11am all available tickets for the concert that has a 25,000 capacity had sold out much to the disappointment of scores of fans who continued to trickle into Virgin stores throughout the day only to be turned away.
Emerging from Virgin in Mercato at 9.10am with her clutch of tickets, die-hard Robbie fan Jayne said: 'I've seen Robbie five times in concert and he's the most amazing performer. When I heard he was coming to Dubai, I was thrilled and amazed.
'I even have friends and relatives coming over from the UK for the concert.' Emirati Ahmed Ali who'd been queuing since 8am said:
'When I first heard Robbie Williams being played in a restaurant, I decided to buy a couple of his albums and was even more impressed with his music. I'm looking forward to a family day out at the concert.'
At Mall of the Emirates fans turned up as early as 4am. Mark Page who arrived at 7am waited four hours to claim the last of the front row standing tickets.
He said: 'I can't believe how lucky I've been. If I'd have arrived any later, I might have been turned away empty handed.'
A manager at Virgin admitted that the scale of queues had never before been witnessed in Dubai and that they restricted sales to six tickets per person to curb the risk of touting.
However, for every 25,000 Robbie fan looking forward to the concert, there' s likely to be many more lamenting the fact that they won't be going to the show.
Bonny said: 'I left Mercato hoping the queue at the Mall of the Emirates would be shorter.
'But no such luck. I suppose I'll have to listen to the concert on the radio at home.'
Such has been the overwhelming response, that Midas Promotions, the company hosting the show, is asking people not to turn up to the concert unless they have a ticket and if they do, to leave at least two hours before the performance begins at 8.30pm sharp.
Rachel Monk, representing EMI in the UAE, Robbie's record label, said: 'Based on Robbie's track record, we expected tickets to sell fast but nothing quite like on the scale that we saw yesterday morning.'
The concert at Nad Al Sheba comes less than five weeks after the world-famous racecourse hosts the Dubai World Cup.
After the horse race, a special floor will be laid to the cover the hallowed turf at Nad Al Sheba along with a purpose-built stage featuring more than 200 moving lights with large screens either side.
The concert is the second fixture of the Robbie Williams world tour after Cape Town on April 10. A team of personal assistants for Robbie will be arriving in Dubai next week to view three luxury hotels for the star to spend his brief stay.
Midas Promotions are remaining tight-lipped over the exact whereabouts of the star who has also declined to hold any press conferences in the UAE.
However, music shops are expecting sales of Robbie's latest platinum-selling album 'Intensive Care' which took two years in the making and shot to one in 18 different countries, to rocket in the run up to the concert.
Naki Kalajleh, manager of Virgin at Mercato, said: 'Before any concert, album sales rise but as this is the biggest show Dubai has ever seen, we're expecting bumper sales of Robbie records.''