Desert secret

Dubai Heritage Vision general manager Johan Viljoen explains why Jumana Secret of the Desert is a pioneer for Dubailand and highlights valuable lessons to be learned for upcoming attractions operators in the desert destination.

Nestled within Dubai's sand dunes are Jumana Secret of the Desert, a spectacle combining the essence of traditional Arabia with striking special effects and modern technology. Drawing its influences from the little-known imagistics genre and a fairy-tale love story, Jumana is a captivating entertainment show that is the first of its kind in the UAE.

Due to enter its third season this year, the story behind Jumana's creation and development is as fascinating as the show itself. Part of the Al Sahra Desert Resort, which is being developed by Dubai Heritage Vision, it is the first of Dubailand's entertainment projects to be operational.

This means that those behind its development over the past few years have a wealth of knowledge invaluable to all those planning on opening leisure attractions within the destination.

Leisure Manager caught up with Dubai Heritage Vision general manager Johan M Viljoen - an opera singer turned communications expert who is responsible for managing Al Sahra - to find out how to overcome the challenge of desert operations and uncover the secrets of season three.
 

Early challenges

South African-born Viljoen joined the Al Sahra project in April 2005, when it was at the initial building stages.

"A huge challenge from the outset was the environment. We're in the desert. And no matter how well you plan in the desert, when you live the reality it's different," says Viljoen.

"That reality confronted us sometimes with those curve balls that we simply did not anticipate," he recalls.

The most difficult part was to bring the project about on time, says Viljoen, especially as Al Sahra had committed to staging the first Jumana show to an exclusive audience in September 2006.

Building issues included sealing the 10-million litre capacity water basin in the amphitheatre, finding rock where they had anticipated sand, and ensuring constant supervision of the execution of the design.

"You have to anticipate what kind of evaporation you'll have from that basin and what kind of exposure to surfaces there will be -whatever is exposed to the summer sun gets scorched, and damage to assets influences the life cycle of our product," says Johan.

Paying attention to soil tests is also crucial, he says, warning that even though the desert looks like it is made up of sand, just half a metre down on the amphitheatre site they had found rock.

"All of a sudden timelines and budget go bust as you have to break rock, which means you have to bring in unbelievably heavy and expensive equipment," says Viljoen.

Tracking the weather is equally important, and Al Sahra now has a weather station to monitor conditions before each show.

This is because of the water screens and jets used during the show, the highest of which hits 80,000 metres. Viljoen estimates that this is two to three metres taller than the famous Bellagio geyser in Las Vegas.
 

A strong wind may not cause any discomfort to those on the ground but if a water jet hits the wind, it could pose great health and safety risks, he explains.

"Once in the first season we had to stop the performance mid-show because weather is fickle, but out of 210 performances that's not bad. There was water all over the stage and performers were slipping," reveals Viljoen.

The unique environmental challenges posed by the desert are therefore ongoing, although the team is now experienced in its various nuances, all of which help to create a unique show, with the jet choreography changing all the time, explains Jumana's creative director Gerhard Meyer, a film-making expert from South Africa.

"You have to live the desert to know what it's about, no question," asserts Viljoen.

The fact that the show was such a niche project was also a challenge initially.

"At the outset there was no technology in Dubai that we could use, so everything had to be imported from Europe," says Meyer, adding that most technologies are from French companies such as Groupe F.

"We've been pioneers in a big way and we don't mind people knocking on the door. We've learned lessons - sometimes in a hard way," adds Viljoen, who has already developed a good relationship with the team behind Universal Studios Dubailand.
 

Show USPs

Alongside the development of the Al Sahra amphitheatre was the creative development of the show itself, which fell largely to Meyer.

"The show comes out of a genre that is not often talked about and this is imagistics theatre," says Viljoen.

"Imagistics shows involve water, light, laser, sound, pyrotechnics (two branches; fireworks and flame), animals and a human element - performers," he explains.

"The French refined the typical light-laser-sound show and we've taken that one step further. What we also had to look at was the acceptance of this concept in this part of the world - the UAE specifically - and we had to hybridise the imagistics concept.

"Pure imagistics would not normally have a voice-over. We have Omar Sharif as the story-teller, which is very Arabic and that part we really like. There's a narrative; it starts with 'once upon a time' and concludes with 'lived happily ever after'. Otherwise, imagistics becomes too abstract to be understood by an audience," says Viljoen.

The key to the wow factor of the show, he adds, is the unexpected; it is full of surprises.

Not only is the genre of the show a USP, but so too is its "Arabic-ness", continues Viljoen, adding that the performers are recruited from Arabia and that the food and beverage (F&B) is Arabic fusion.

"This was always a mission of ours - to keep the core of Al Sahra as Arabic as possible," he says. "I think the USP of the resort ultimately has to be, and will be, the 'Arabic-ness' of it, if there is such a word. And that to me is not just Arabesque," says Viljoen.

Meyer adds: "The Arabian essence of Jumana is unique; there is no other show like it elsewhere in the world at the moment".
 

This factor appeals to an international audience that wants to learn about Arab culture as well as a local audience, says Viljoen.

"We want to capture the culture and lifestyle not only of the Arab of yesterday, but of today and that probably makes a small contribution to the lifestyle of the future," he adds.

"Young Arabic people will come here and participate in what we do, whether on the business side, behind the scenes in general administrative set-up, in F&B or in the flashy part of us which is the show. Future shows will have young Arabs with great talent join as business people or as artists, and then develop that talent," says Viljoen.

Region-wide recruitment

Getting an Arabic team on board was not too difficult, says Viljoen, as long as the region was approached in its widest context, targeting the Maghreb, Levant and Egypt, as well as the Gulf.

"In Egypt we have a source of good Arab stock not only for the F&B side but on the performer side, with the Cairo Ballet for example," says Viljoen.

"If you focus on the GCC only - excluding Yemen and Oman because there you have a totally different characteristic - it's complex; it's difficult," he adds.
 

"On the performance side, there is not existing talent. There is young talent, but there is not mature talent that we could source to partake," says Viljoen.

The technical team meanwhile is mainly Filipino, he says, because there was a good source of well-qualified technical staff from the Philippines in Dubai when they began recruiting two years ago.

There are currently 148 employees on the payroll, including 60 performers, and a core of 185 people at the resort when taking into account sub contractors such as security.

However, the performers leave the resort from June to August when the show stops running for the summer.

"From a business point of view, it is a complex animal to manage," says Viljoen.

"Seasonality poses a complex canvas where we have to keep the balance between what needs to be maintained year-round and what can be phased out seasonally, then plugged in and switched on when we open on October 1 of next season," he explains.

Marketing issues

With the performance now perfected and an experienced team on board, the next challenge for the Jumana team is marketing.

"It's a bipolar situation that we are confronted with," says Viljoen.

Half of the people we speak to know Jumana and love it and half have never heard of it.

"In some areas we have done extremely well I believe; in others, obviously, we've just scratched the surface. In any positioning strategy that is a huge challenge initially," says Viljoen.

"The multiplicity of the situation in Dubai poses a particular challenge. You cannot go through a single channel addressing all the communities in Dubai," he says, "which places a huge demand on advertising budget as you have to be in many places. And during positioning stages, frequency is very important," he adds.

"You cannot simply launch a campaign or just blitz a market and assume that there will be such a level of retention that we all remember the Jumana campaign next week. It's on-going. The seasonality of the business doesn't really help us," he admits.

On the flip side, Viljoen believes that as Dubailand establishes itself as a destination and becomes populated with other projects, then not only will people's perception of Dubailand as a remote location change, but Al Sahra will also be able to exploit synergistic relationships with other attractions.
 

Future plans

The future for Jumana Secret of the Desert seems positive, with Dubailand set to receive increasing exposure, but the team is not one to rest on its laurels.

Last season recorded 80,000 visitors and Viljoen says that reflects a steady continuum upwards: "From a business point of view we have been able to reduce our costs as we become more familiar with what we are and what we do, streamlining the machine".

Imagistics shows typically run for three seasons, so the story of Jumana will not change this year.

However, Meyer reveals that he is working on a completely new choreographed show. Whether it will run for a fourth show is yet to be seen, but after a maximum of four years the show will change completely, but still be Arabic, he says.

"For the third season, the events on stage will be more elaborate and spectacular. And there will be even more action," says Meyer.

Particular changes include more magic and a larger role for the horses, as a result of previous audience responses.

There will also be interactive entertainment such as stilt walkers, camel rides and falcon shows as visitors make their way from the box office to the amphitheatre, plus singers and dancers in the resort's three F&B outlets.

"There's nowhere else in this town where you can get this sort of entertainment and fantasy," says Meyer.

Looking ahead, however, how will Al Sahra survive with the forthcoming launch of shows at Aqua Dunya in Dubailand and Cirque du Soleil on The Palm, Jumeirah, plus many others no doubt?

"It's really to make sure that we keep that unique Arabic-ness in whatever we offer and to stay as close as possible to the regional and the traditional," says Viljoen. "That's where we see our future and that's the path we will carve out for ourselves.

"I don't think it far-fetched to say that in 10,15 or 20 years from now, Al Sahra will be to Dubai what Central Park is to New York - a place where you can still kick off your shoes and stick your feet in the sand. That would be my personal vision," says Viljoen.

He adds finally that although in the future Dubai Heritage Vision will look to other projects, for now the focus is Al Sahra - a resort in the making.