It is one of the largest amounts of seating that the company has ever supplied at a single event. The project was managed for Al Laith by Ross Cameron, who worked alongside 120 crew including scaffers, climbers and riggers, in the process constructing grandstands around three sides of the arena, and installing media platforms, five camera platforms, two large format LED screen supports, 1Km of police barriers, 400m of Mojo crowd barriers and 1.8Km of Heras fencing, complete with tele-handling vehicles and scissor lifts and other access equipment and assorted other site infrastructure elements.
Al Laith was working for Blink Events, an event production company based in Dubai. The process involved them taking over the car park and beach, an area of approximately 40,000sq.m between the Hilton and Sheraton Hotels on Jumeirah Beach for two weeks, during which they worked solid 14 hour days to conclude the site build.
The finished venue included both standing and seated raised viewing areas and a 30 x 40m VIP platform measuring 6m high.
All the levels were built using Steeldeck bases, after which Harlequin Marquees and Event Services supplied a bespoke flooring system that was fitted on top of the finished decking.
Cameron comments, "It was a very tight work schedule, and the pressure was on for us to turn it around quickly to allow the riders as much time as possible to rehearse on the track. Despite all this, it was also a fantastic site to work on with a really friendly atmosphere - and we got to go to the beach every day."
Says Mike Smith, Head of Production for Blink Events, "It was an absolute pleasure working with the Al Laith team - we knew we were asking a lot with a huge build in a tight timeframe and Al Laith were the obvious choice."
(Jim Evans)
