THE CHALLENGE

Repurposing an industrial complex in Riyadh to facilitate our client’s annual 3-day music conference. With tailored programming across daytime and nighttime, featuring panel discussions, performances, workshops and more, XP has a lot going on.

The Solution

We embed a small and effective Health & Safety team on the ground to ensure Build, Show and Break run safely.

We do this on foot of working with our client and partners to plan the event in great detail, having done so for 4 years now.

XP takes place at a time when we can have 60 + Operational Safety Team members working just outside Riyadh at Soundstorm.

Year one of XP saw us share personnel resources with Soundstorm due to a range of challenges including timelines. From then on, XP has benefitted from its own 3-person Operational Safety Team typically from us, focusing on the particular nuances and challenges it throws up.

It is an interesting mix between traditional daytime conference elements like workshops and panels etc. as well as the traditional nighttime fare of gigs and parties. It needs to work exceptionally well for both and we enjoy being a part of ensuring that happens.

Small by comparison with some of the other shows on which we work with MDLBEAST, XP is a favourite and still benefits from our established approach to ensuring safety for events – we roll our our full Digital Operations programme to support our personnel on the ground.

The Result

Thousands of people attend XP Music Futures, revelling in the initiatives, workshops and exposure to the music industry the event provides.

We play our small part to facilitate the development of the event year on year.

XP Music Futures is held each year shortly before the flagship Soundstorm festival in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

Both run by the amazing team at MDLBEAST, XP provides artists from far and wide as well as local music talent and aspiring industry professionals the opportunity to mix and mingle and to learn from and educate one another.

Each year the event grows both in size, complexity and appeal. It now includes 8 different industry initiatives, some aimed specifically at helping females in the industry (Hunna), others around incubating innovative music startups (Sound Futures), while another takes the form of an Artist Management Bootcamp.

The event is a beautiful one, furthering a cause close to the hearts of all in MDLBEAST, that of championing the music scene in all its facets in KSA.

Events like XP, what they are all about, what they contribute to the development of the music industry in the Middle East are something we truly enjoy supporting i.e. enabling them to happen from a safety perspective.

Our Part

We have worked closely with MDLBEAST to deliver 60+ large-scale, ambitious events since 2021, including XP Music Futures each year.

Services we provide include:

  • Health & Safety Strategy development
  • Crowd & Event Safety consultancy
  • Safety by Design consultancy
  • Civil Defense / Authorities liaison
  • Operational Team deployment
  • Tactical Command provision
  • Stakeholder management
  • Vendor management