Dubai's Coca-Cola Arena to restart live events with new safety procedures

The Coca-Cola Arena is opening its doors once again, with new social distancing and hygiene procedures in place to ensure the safety of visitors.

The indoor arena, which is located in Dubai's City Walk, will reopen on November 20, with the music event OJ Lifestyle presents Dark Knights Edition 1.0. The event will feature live performances from UK rappers and singers, including Mostack, Yungen and Not3s. The event will be hosted by British comedian Paul Chowdhry.

Chowdhry will also be taking to the Coca-Cola Arena stage for OJ Lifestyle presents Dark Laughs on Thursday, November 26.

This is the first show to take place at the arena since February. However, since the venue opened in June 2019, the Coca-Cola Arena has hosted several of sold-out events, including gigs from comic Russell Peters and band Maroon 5.

“We are very pleased to be able to provide live entertainment to the community of Dubai again,” Guy Ngata, chief executive of Coca-Cola Arena, said in a statement.

“There has been a tremendous amount of work implemented across many sectors in Dubai to get to this point, and we are pleased to now open our doors again with the safety of our guests of the utmost importance.”

Coca-Cola Arena’s new protocols and procedures have been developed in collaboration with Dubai Municipality, Ministry of Health and Prevention, Department of Tourism & Commerce Marketing as well as the Arena’s management company, ASM Global.

The arena has also implemented an environmental hygiene protocol called VenueShield, which is said to provide the highest levels of cleanliness and safety using advanced hygienic safeguards.

“It’s critical that we assure people they are attending a safe environment allowing fans and artists to enjoy an amazing live experience, which we are confident will be the case,” Ngata said.

“Our VenueShield protocol is there to instil confidence in our guests as we all become accustomed to a new way of experiencing live events for the time being.”

Coca-Cola Arena also asks fans to remember the Dubai government’s message of “we are all responsible” and to not attend a live event if feeling unwell.

“It is important that fans are vigilant of their own surroundings and responsible in relation to their own well-being and that of others, in line with the consistent messaging communicated by the government of Dubai over the past months.”