Flair Event Services based in Dubai designs and delivers full technical production for a range of cool, spectacular, and extraordinary projects – corporates, industrials, concerts, clubs, social events and more – throughout the UAE and across the Middle East region. Their designs are known for their style and innovation and Robe products are specified for around 85% of these.
The team – currently nearly 70 full-time – also engages in consultancy work and is headed by managing director Sameer “Sam” Rahman who has been in the industry since he was a teenager. He started working in a theatre in Dubai when at high school as well as DJ’ing and running his own lightshows, initially with 12 PAR cans and plenty of imagination. Sam is now also an award-winning lighting designer who has worked worldwide on a diversity of shows. He is Flair’s head of lighting – and responsible for all investments – as well as MD of the company and is a big advocate for Robe. Flair has a large stock of Robe moving lights, and the venture has advanced rapidly since 2013 when he founded it, into a leading and award-winning enterprise.
Sam own appreciation of Robe started when he first ‘met’ the brand working as a freelance LD, and again when he was still a teenager in the mid-noughties. He recalls the first major Robe installation in Dubai which was at Chi @ the Lodge (now closed), an enormous venue complete with four different clubs in one setting. The first season he worked there was 2007, after which he convinced management to dispense with several of the cheaper moving lights from other brands and upgrade with some Robe fixtures.
A bunch of Robe ColorSpot 575E ATs arrived and made a massive difference to the dynamics and drama of the club’s lighting. Sam recalls particularly liking the pink and white gobo. Flair has Robe MegaPointes, Spiider LED washbeams and LEDBeam 150s in its inventory plus access to large dry hire inventories of other Robe models which they are planning to replace with their own stock.
In 2019, Sam designed a stunning show for Pakistani superstar RFAK (Rahat Fateh Ali Khan)’s world tour which included over 300 Robe fixtures – 48 x FORTES, 96 Spiiders, 76 MegaPointes and 96 x LEDBeam 150s plus four RoboSpots running BMFL FS luminaires. This gave him “incredible scope” and he likes Robe for its “reliability, good engineering, and creative features. Generally, he thinks the products are extremely robust, noting, “Robe is an industry leading brand, so there are many reasons to use it.”
As a designer, it’s important to be brand-neutral, but since the start of his professional career nearly 20 years ago, he thinks Robe consistently brought very relevant moving lights to the market, and that’s why he continues to use them. Service, backup and support are other big things when specifying or investing, and Sam describes the team at Robe’s Middle East subsidiary – also based in Dubai – as “phenomenal. Their diligence is second to none, and the pricing structure is very fair.”
Sam first encountered Robe’s LEDBeam 150s when designing lighting for a 6-month festival in Dubai. On the original spec there was initially another LED wash fixture, but when the dry hire company offered LEDBeam 150s, he assessed the fixture and went with LEDBeam 150s. “When I saw them in situ, the quality and optics of the lights absolutely blew me away, especially for such a small size!” he declared. “When utilizing the right type of haze, this luminaire gives a proper solid beam even in a large arena space.”
Flair’s head of Technical Marno Snyman joined in 2022 and was delighted that they used so much Robe, having himself had many great experiences with the brand working with top companies like Sound Stylists and others in South Africa. “I absolutely love Robe” he enthused, “the colors are always excellent and well-matched between the different fixture ranges, and they think about other practicalities like making them light in weight.”
At Flair, Marno oversees all the technical elements and oversees 90% of the shows, and in SA he worked on large projects like the SAMAs (South African Music Awards) and TV productions like Strictly, all with plenty of Robe, and he echoes Sam’s comments on the reliability and effectiveness of working with a quality brand.
Elie Battah, MD of Robe Middle East, commented, “It is always a pleasure for me to work with the Flair team – their show designs are constantly innovative and pushing the boundaries creatively and in terms of what is possible with the technology. They are highly professional and consistent, and can always rely on our full support.”
Further information from Robe: www.robe.cz
Photos Courtesy Flair Event Services
