AN ALL-STAR CAST AND CREW COME TOGETHER TO DELIVER A MAMMOTH EVENT THAT IS A TOUCHSTONE FOR THE BURGEONING SAUDI ARABIAN EVENTS INDUSTRY.
In the space of just over three years since the first edition of its flagship festival, SOUNDSTORM, MDLBEAST has experienced a meteoric rise, growing rapidly into a multifaceted music entertainment company that is a major force in the development of the Saudi Arabian live events industry. The third edition of SOUNDSTORM, which took place in December 2022, was the biggest yet, attracting more than 600,000 music fans for a three day extravaganza headlined by a catalogue of global superstars, including Bruno Mars, Swedish House Mafia, Post Malone, DJ Khaled, and David Guetta.
With seven stages spread across a massive 5.5 sq km purpose-built festival site, SOUNDSTORM is a festival on a mammoth scale – a fact that became painfully apparent as we dashed from stage to stage the day before opening, checking in with some of the key figures from the various production teams working on the event, all while gradually burning to a crisp in the afternoon sun.
One man who certainly has no problem navigating his way around the vast festival site is MDLBEAST’s Executive Director of Events, Michael ‘Curly’ Jobson. While he was understandably tied up with the huge task of overseeing the general running of the festival during our visit, Curly took some time out of his busy schedule to catch up with TPMEA once the dust had settled. “It’s mind-boggling how big and production intensive it is,” he reflected, looking back on the project. “All the planning and the learnings from 2021 came together. The key thing is the customer journey; we learned so much about our customer and what they want in a festival. We are immensely proud of what we produced.” A 40-year veteran of concert production, there’s not much that Curly hasn’t come across in his time in the industry. However, even he was taken aback by the sheer scale of SOUNDSTORM. “The movement of people, traffic flow, parking, security, accessibility to the venue… all these factors needed to be carefully considered before we even started talking about producing the show,” he recalled. “I showed up here in 2020 and, not being from the festival world, I had to learn very quickly. I applied the same logic I have applied to everything else I’ve ever done in my career, which is ‘if you don’t know how to do it, ask somebody’.”
With the backing of the MDLBEAST leadership – “Ramadan [Alharatani, CEO] and Talal [Albahiti, COO] give me endless support” – Curly set about assembling a team capable of delivering the colossal production. “I’ve called upon some incredible people along the way, who helped bring me to an understanding of how to produce an event of this nature,” he said.
One of the many “incredible people” who were integral to the festival’s success is Festival Director, Matt Richman of productionglue, a TAIT company. “Without Matt, I’d be going nowhere fast,” Curly smiled. “We’re both from the same world and have a clear understanding of each other’s strengths and weaknesses. We’ve dovetailed very nicely.” Also speaking to TPMEA after the event, Richman outlined the enormity of the task. “This is a massive endeavour that comes imbued with both logistical and operational challenges as we coordinate multinational teams,” he commented. “We begin preparation over a year in advance, with crews on the ground throughout the year working to ensure that we are ready for opening day. Our team starts with a set of core planning members and evolves to comprise over 150 on the ground, not including the 10,000-plus staff and crew needed during show days to support
the patron experience.”
The Festival Director pointed to an “unmatched level of precision” required to execute the event to the required standard. “That is why we have brought back a lot of familiar names and companies with international expertise and festival experience, including:
Special Projects, PRG, MTD, Silent House, ER Productions, Cassius Creative, Clair Global, TAIT, Ginger Owl, ESM, and Safe Events, among many others,” he stated. “These partners are best in class at what they do and helped to ensure that SOUNDSTORM could light up the night skies and break new records in pyrotechnics, as well as
deliver an unparalleled guest experience.
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