The rate of sales growth in Dubai was at its strongest in 10 months. Getty Images
The rate of sales growth in Dubai was at its strongest in 10 months. Getty Images
The rate of sales growth in Dubai was at its strongest in 10 months. Getty Images
The rate of sales growth in Dubai was at its strongest in 10 months. Getty Images

New cultural festival Breakout DXB coming to Dubai in November


Saeed Saeed
  • English
  • Arabic

A cultural festival is coming to Dubai next month.

Running on Friday, November 6 at the Rove Downtown hotel, Breakout DXB will be the largest live event to take place in the UAE since the pandemic halted the entertainment industry in March.

Spread across indoors and outdoor sections of the hotel, the festival will be home to musical performances, film screenings, art installations and cultural panel discussions.

With authorities mandating a limited capacity, the 12-hour ticketed event will host up to 800 people with extensive safety measures developed in consultation with Department of Tourism and Commerce Marketing (Dubai Tourism).

In an exclusive interview with The National, Lobito Brigante, who along seasoned events organiser Dan Bolton co-founded the festival, explains the event is more than an ambitious undertaking, but an essential step in kick-starting UAE's vibrant cultural scene.

“We have to get moving again as the pandemic has absolutely decimated the industry. It is easy to forget that there are many creatives who depend on this industry for their and family’s livelihood,” Brigante says.

“And also, if we are being totally frank here, this is a virus that, for the moment, we have to live with and that doesn’t mean that we can’t continue to be inspired by culture. We want to show that such events can be done safely by following the guidelines.”

This meant both Brigante and Bolton had to be creatively agile. With safety measures changing in line with health authorities' evolving knowledge of the virus, Breakout DXB underwent numerous iterations before receiving official approval to run.

"It was like working on a Rubik's Cube because of the many moving parts," Brigante says. "We have had the idea for this, essentially, since April and initially it was going to run on a hybrid model with a small number of physical attendees. But as we all managed to learn about the situation we managed to find a way to create a fully physical event."

What’s on the programme?

On the music front, Breakout DXB is set to be a fine showcase of the UAE’s independent music scene, with Emirati soulman Hamdan Al Abri leading a bill that includes singer-songwriter Layla Kardan and deep house producer Charl Chaka. More names will be announced soon.

Emirati singer Hamdan Al Abri. Breakout DXB
Emirati singer Hamdan Al Abri. Breakout DXB

The performances will be split across two stages. The minor stage is located inside Rove Downtown’s TGI Friday's and will host sets during the day. While the main stage, placed outside in the car park, will be home to evening performances.

The hotel’s in-house movie theatre will screen a number of short films by regional and international filmmakers, in addition to hosting a video-game competition.

Reel Cinemas Rove Downtown Hotel. Reel Cinemas
Reel Cinemas Rove Downtown Hotel. Reel Cinemas

Art lovers will have a lot to see in the hotel’s spacious lobby. The stylish work desks and colourful couches will make way for a number of art installations by UAE artists. A small stage will also be set to host panel discussions organised by Emirates Music Summit with topics focusing on how local creatives can bounce back amid the pandemic.

The exterior of Rove Downtown, both the entryways and car park, will be home to an eclectic range of food and markets stalls.

Brigante says the extensive programme is the result of wide discussions with all facets of the entertainment industry. “This is not a top down approach,” he says. “It is important to say that this is was conceived with a lot of input from fellow artists and creatives. I mean, look, we are not saying that this event will solve all their challenges but it is a platform to show the talent available here.”

How will this be done?

While the intention is admirable, we are still amid the pandemic. Isn’t a festival, in its very nature, the antithesis of social distancing?

Not necessarily, Brigante says.

“If you create a good and interesting programme that will create a vibe of its own,” he states. “And even if you are seated with your loved ones and potentially your family – and with no one sitting right beside you – people are still there. There is still that energy. We may not meet new people the way you normally do at festivals, but this is the time that we are living in now.”

And in this period, running a festival requires a new way of doing things. To ensure the festival meets the stringent safety measures mandated by authorities, Breakout DXB hired safety consultants to ensure all the boxes were ticked.

Breakout DXB co-founder Lobito Brigante. Victor Besa / The National
Breakout DXB co-founder Lobito Brigante. Victor Besa / The National

With limited capacity mandated by the authorities for all entertainment events across the UAE, each area of the festival can hold a specific number of patrons.

The cinema will welcome up to 20 people at any given time, with pairs of seats spread throughout the room. The lobby will accommodate 50 people while the main outdoor stage can accept up to 600.

All venues have numerous entry and exit points with extra security officials in place to monitor the one-way flow of people traffic and to avoid bottlenecks.

Brigante is confident the festival will be on top of things throughout the event. A lot of this is down to the ticketing system in place, which he feels will be an essential feature for all major events in the near future. So say goodbye to just showing up with expectations of entry.

“If you're going to do a festival which has multiple zones of entertainment, you have to have capacity control. You have to be able to live monitor the situation and get constant updates on how many people are in the venue at a certain time. And then you have to have contingencies to change the flow of people, to move them from one area to the other,” he says.

“The only way to do that safely and smoothly is through a ticketing system. We also have a tracking system which is updated live digitally, which with the tickets, allows us to know what is exactly going everywhere.”

But when it comes to the pandemic, no high-tech wizardry is able to match the power of common sense.

‘We are in this together’ is not a mere slogan, Brigante says, but a message central to the revival of the UAE entertainment industry.

“We are trying our best to make things as unobtrusive as possible but it is up to all of us to follow the guidelines to keep everyone safe,” he says. “Personal responsibility is very important here and we all have a stake in getting the scene back on its feet.”

Breakout DXB takes place on Friday, November 6 from 11am to 11pm. Tickets begin from Dh249 per person, inclusive of a food voucher redeemable at any outlet at the event, and are available from Wednesday, October 7 on Platinumlist

ELIO

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Directors: Madeline Sharafian, Domee Shi, Adrian Molina

Rating: 4/5

David Haye record

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Wins by KO: 26
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SPECS
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Our legal advisor

Ahmad El Sayed is Senior Associate at Charles Russell Speechlys, a law firm headquartered in London with offices in the UK, Europe, the Middle East and Hong Kong.

Experience: Commercial litigator who has assisted clients with overseas judgments before UAE courts. His specialties are cases related to banking, real estate, shareholder disputes, company liquidations and criminal matters as well as employment related litigation. 

Education: Sagesse University, Beirut, Lebanon, in 2005.

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• Only about 160,000 have been officially described leaving around 90% undiscovered
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'The Woman in the House Across the Street from the Girl in the Window'

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T20 World Cup Qualifier A, Muscat

Friday, February 18: 10am - Oman v Nepal, Canada v Philippines; 2pm - Ireland v UAE, Germany v Bahrain

Saturday, February 19: 10am - Oman v Canada, Nepal v Philippines; 2pm - UAE v Germany, Ireland v Bahrain

Monday, February 21: 10am - Ireland v Germany, UAE v Bahrain; 2pm - Nepal v Canada, Oman v Philippines

Tuesday, February 22: 2pm – semi-finals

Thursday, February 24: 2pm – final

UAE squad: Ahmed Raza (captain), Muhammad Waseem, Chirag Suri, Vriitya Aravind, Rohan Mustafa, Kashif Daud, Zahoor Khan, Alishan Sharafu, Raja Akifullah, Karthik Meiyappan, Junaid Siddique, Basil Hameed, Zafar Farid, Mohammed Boota, Mohammed Usman, Rahul Bhatia

All matches to be streamed live on icc.tv

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The Birkin bag is made by Hermès. 
It is named after actress and singer Jane Birkin
Noone from Hermès will go on record to say how much a new Birkin costs, how long one would have to wait to get one, and how many bags are actually made each year.

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Her most famous song

Aghadan Alqak (Would I Ever Find You Again)?

Would I ever find you again
You, the heaven of my love, my yearning and madness;
You, the kiss to my soul, my cheer and
sadness?
Would your lights ever break the night of my eyes again?
Would I ever find you again?
This world is volume and you're the notion,
This world is night and you're the lifetime,
This world is eyes and you're the vision,
This world is sky and you're the moon time,
Have mercy on the heart that belongs to you.

Lyrics: Al Hadi Adam; Composer: Mohammed Abdel Wahab

At a glance

Global events: Much of the UK’s economic woes were blamed on “increased global uncertainty”, which can be interpreted as the economic impact of the Ukraine war and the uncertainty over Donald Trump’s tariffs.

 

Growth forecasts: Cut for 2025 from 2 per cent to 1 per cent. The OBR watchdog also estimated inflation will average 3.2 per cent this year

 

Welfare: Universal credit health element cut by 50 per cent and frozen for new claimants, building on cuts to the disability and incapacity bill set out earlier this month

 

Spending cuts: Overall day-to day-spending across government cut by £6.1bn in 2029-30 

 

Tax evasion: Steps to crack down on tax evasion to raise “£6.5bn per year” for the public purse

 

Defence: New high-tech weaponry, upgrading HM Naval Base in Portsmouth

 

Housing: Housebuilding to reach its highest in 40 years, with planning reforms helping generate an extra £3.4bn for public finances

Biog

Mr Kandhari is legally authorised to conduct marriages in the gurdwara

He has officiated weddings of Sikhs and people of different faiths from Malaysia, Sri Lanka, Russia, the US and Canada

Father of two sons, grandfather of six

Plays golf once a week

Enjoys trying new holiday destinations with his wife and family

Walks for an hour every morning

Completed a Bachelor of Commerce degree in Loyola College, Chennai, India

2019 is a milestone because he completes 50 years in business

 

F1 The Movie

Starring: Brad Pitt, Damson Idris, Kerry Condon, Javier Bardem

Director: Joseph Kosinski

Rating: 4/5

Sinopharm vaccine explained

The Sinopharm vaccine was created using techniques that have been around for decades. 

“This is an inactivated vaccine. Simply what it means is that the virus is taken, cultured and inactivated," said Dr Nawal Al Kaabi, chair of the UAE's National Covid-19 Clinical Management Committee.

"What is left is a skeleton of the virus so it looks like a virus, but it is not live."

This is then injected into the body.

"The body will recognise it and form antibodies but because it is inactive, we will need more than one dose. The body will not develop immunity with one dose," she said.

"You have to be exposed more than one time to what we call the antigen."

The vaccine should offer protection for at least months, but no one knows how long beyond that.

Dr Al Kaabi said early vaccine volunteers in China were given shots last spring and still have antibodies today.

“Since it is inactivated, it will not last forever," she said.

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4,872 matches 

1,942 teams

116 pitches

76 nations

26 UAE teams

15 Lebanese teams

2 Kuwaiti teams

GAC GS8 Specs

Engine: 2.0-litre 4cyl turbo

Power: 248hp at 5,200rpm

Torque: 400Nm at 1,750-4,000rpm

Transmission: 8-speed auto

Fuel consumption: 9.1L/100km

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Seven tips from Emirates NBD

1. Never respond to e-mails, calls or messages asking for account, card or internet banking details

2. Never store a card PIN (personal identification number) in your mobile or in your wallet

3. Ensure online shopping websites are secure and verified before providing card details

4. Change passwords periodically as a precautionary measure

5. Never share authentication data such as passwords, card PINs and OTPs  (one-time passwords) with third parties

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7. Report lost or stolen debit and credit cards immediately

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