Abu Dhabi-based Flash Entertainment is hoping this year’s Mubadala World Tennis Championships can be the ace that helps serve up regional expansion plans.
The Championship, which is being held in December, has already received top-billing with the news this week that UK women’s number one and teenage US Open sensation Emma Raducanu is to take centre stage against Olympic gold medallist Belinda Bencic.
And with the men’s line-up to be announced imminently, these are exciting times for Flash Entertainment CEO John Lickrish, who is also seeing his vision for Middle East coverage coming to fruition. This includes a new office opening in Dubai’s D3 district, while they are currently waiting on licenses to open up in Saudi Arabia.
He told Arabian Business: “I’m really excited. It’s something I originally mapped out back in 2007 when I wrote the strategy for major events and live events in Abu Dhabi, where we are and what we needed to do.”
Flash Entertainment is playing a leading role at Expo 2020 Dubai, where they are in charge of two main parts of the entertainment programme for the six-month global showcase – the Dubai Millennium Theatre and the Jubilee Stage. The company is also organising 85 performances in total for the Paradise Orchestra, which consists of 50 Arab women.
Lickrish said: “The big thing for us is the opening of our Dubai office in D3. Going off the back of what we’re doing for expo, which is a huge project and it’s very exciting, it gives us the credibility in the market, where some people listen to our competitors too much who say we’re here to destroy Dubai. But that’s obviously not the case.”
In terms of the tennis, which is set to take place at the International Tennis Centre at Zayed Sports City in the UAE capital, from December 16-18, Lickrish admitted he was eagerly anticipating what will be the 13th edition of the event.
Zayed Sports City in Abu Dhabi.
“It was a no brainer for us. She’s (Raducanu) the up-and-comer and we always talk about refreshing the tournament and making sure we’re current with the times and that goes back to the very beginning,” he said.
“We want to showcase what we see as the future of tennis and obviously she’s one of the key players, going from qualifier all the way to US Open champion at one of the biggest tournaments in the world.”
He added: “It’s a great event. It’s my favourite one on the calendar. It’s at the end of the year. It’s run very well, it’s not super stressful and we believe it’s a great event for families and casual tennis fans as well as the hardcore, because you get so close to the athletes, you get to engage with them at different levels at the practice courts or some of the practice sessions.”
Covid restrictions will still apply around social distancing, with organisers looking, at the moment, at a 50 percent capacity in the stadium for the event, although Lickrish admitted, with the success of the country’s vaccination campaign and cases of Covid-19 continuing to fall, this could change between now and the first serve.
He said: “We’re very blessed to be in this country because of the support that the leadership has given to the community, as far as the vaccines and taking various precautions while allowing us still to go about our daily lives without too much interruption.
“There’s going to be changes to the Covid-19 protocols coming very soon. We’ve seen some changes now and I would expect, over time, incrementally, that we’re going to get back.”
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