One of Dubai's Most Iconic Venues Gains a Brand-Led VIP Experience
Coca-Cola Arena opened in City Walk in 2019 as Dubai’s first multipurpose indoor arena, seating up to 17,000 people for concerts, sport and live entertainment. Dubai Holding owns the venue, and with it the Royal and VVIP entrance, reception and private suites on the second and third floors, where the arena hosts its most senior guests, including royalty. Dubai Holding is one of our longest-standing partnerships, and it asked us to carry its brand into this part of the arena.
The people using these spaces were among the most influential guests the city receives, yet nothing on their route told them whose building they were in. The suites had been fitted out as standard arena hospitality, with no visible or experiential link to the company that owns the venue. The brief covered every interior space and touchpoint from the private entrance to the suites. The work also had to leave the fabric of a venue in constant use untouched. The opportunity was to let Dubai Holding’s presence register quietly and with confidence, at a level that suits guests of this standing.
We treated the reception, lift lobbies and both suites as one continuous journey and re-skinned all of it. The ground floor reception is the most visible part of the route and the guest’s first impression, so it makes the strongest statement. It has new flooring, a reworked reception and back wall, and portraits of His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum and His Highness Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan remade in metal to belong to the new palette. Upstairs, the suites become darker, quieter and more intimate, so they work for a classical concert as well as a pop show. Concrete tones, black slate and grey stone tables set a calm base. Dubai Holding’s red shows up in the upholstery, and the marque is set in light. Almost every intervention is cladding, wrapping, hanging or overlaying. That kept the build short and means the whole scheme can come out without leaving a mark.
Dubai Holding now receives its most senior guests in spaces that are recognisably its own. From the private entrance to the bar overlooking the arena floor, the brand is carried by materials, colour and light rather than signage alone. It is pitched at a level that suits the people being hosted, and the venue itself is left unaltered.
