Dubai seeks to host events with its own branding

The newly-established Dubai Event Management Corporation announced that it will be hosting ESPN's X Games for the next five years and the emirate is all set with its ambitious plans to lure international competitors and spectators with the games' richest prize purse.

The new corporation has roped in Richard Attias as its CEO and will be conceptualising and executing an ambitious event calendar covering sport, art and social aspects including international politics.

Walt Disney's ESPN agreed on an initial period of five year franchise with Dubai, which will hold the first Dubai X Games World Cup in December 2008 when $2.5 million will be offered to the winners of events including skateboarding, quad bike racing and Moto X racing competitions.

As it appears, this could just be the prelude to the big games and with the infrastructure in place, "Dubai seems to be the most suitable place to host the Olympics," believes Attias.

Confirming the X Games, Attias said: "The cup will set the stage for hosting more high- visibility games that will position Dubai on the global sporting landscape."

—What is the background of Dubai according to Dubai Events Management Corporation?

—The DEMC may be a newly-formed establishment, but the idea goes as far back as 12 years ago when I visited Dubai in one of my previous visits. This was before Dubai hosted the IMF meeting, the first-of-its-kind in the region.

It was then that I was exposed to the vision of His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice-President and Prime Minister of UAE and the Ruler of Dubai. He created Dubai as the most sought-after brand and after establishing it as one of the leading brands in the world, the objective was to lure international events and even conceptualise and organise new events with global appeal.

I was invited by Mohammed Al Gergawi, Minister of State for Cabinet Affairs, Chairman of The Executive Office, and the Executive Chairman and CEO of Dubai Holding, to share my views of emerging Dubai and how we can work for organising world-class events. In my meeting with him, which lasted more than three hours, I conveyed that Dubai has established itself as a brand and now it can host events with Dubai branding.

After listening to me, he made one hasty phone call and asked me if I could repeat my opinion on the subject to someone else. To my surprise, I was in the presence of Shaikh Mohammed in the next 10 minutes who had driven down to the Jumeirah Beach Hotel. I was incredibly impressed by the pace of activities in Dubai and gladly repeated my own perspective of hosting events in Dubai to His Highness.

Seeing my enthusiasm and my capabilities in hosting international events, it was more or less agreed to initiate a process of forming an establishment to take the task of inventing, reinventing and to manage events for Dubai.

—What is the mission and vision of the corporation?

—As the company is owned by the government, it adds lots of responsibility on everyone's shoulders in the corporation. Dubai has established itself as a very professionally-managed business house and anything organised under its umbrella has to reflect the same level of proficiency. The events that are to be organised to enhance the image of the emirate and bring in international levels of entertainment, pleasure and information.

—What is the biggest challenge of organising events?

—An event puts you in direct touch with your audience and the response is instantaneous. Advertising, news and all other means may help you to reach your target audience, but it's only in the events that you are in direct touch with them at the same time and get their response instantaneous. This obviously puts a lot of pressure on organising events, but this is also the challenge that excites the event organisers like me and our establishment.

—What is the biggest event that DEMC is planning to organise or host?

—Dubai has the infrastructure to host any international event with global reach. We have already worked out a tentative calendar of events, and will keep adding more. Today, we are geared to pitch for the best and the biggest events. If Dubai and the rulers of Dubai have the vision of hosting Olympics, DEMC will certainly do everything to make that a possibility. We may not have a deadline to pitch or host the Olympics, but I can tell you that Dubai, with its ultra modern infrastructure, is all set to play host to Olympics also.



PROFILE: Richard Attias, CEO, Dubai Event Management Corp

Richard Attias, after graduating from France's elite Ecole Nationale des Ponts et Chaussées engineering school, began his career in sales at IBM France. In 1986, he moved to another job in the IT industry, becoming General Manager of Econocom France and Econocom Japan.

Richard took a turn to events management in 1990, for which he developed a passion. He founded his own agency and immediately got to work on the Zürich Assurances convention, followed by the organisation of Boris Eltsine's informal visit to France before he became the Russian president. In 1994, Richard was awarded the contract for the signature of the GATT agreements in Marrakech, and for the Middle East and North Africa summit meeting in Casablanca. In 1998, Richard Attias joined the Publicis Group. Later, Richard Attias was named Chairman of the Board of Publicis Dialog, which combines the operations of Publicis Events and a range of marketing services.

In 2004, the Publicis Group named Richard Attias as its chairman. He later became founder President, and co-owner of PublicisLive, specialised in the conception and production of global conferences and very high profile events, such as the Islamic Conference and the Petra Conference of Nobel Laureates.
Now, Richard is CEO of the newly-formed Dubai Events Management Corporation.