WTM 2016: Travel Industry Gets Preview of Dubai’s Epic Aquatic Show ‘La Perle’

By Nikos Krinis

Kent Cooper, La Perle Head of Sales, in the Dubai stand at WTM London 2016.

A new futuristic live show, expected to forever change the entertainment scene in Dubai, as well as benefit the city’s tourism industry, is getting ready to launch next year.

In mid-2017, Al Habtoor City will welcome La Perle, the region’s first permanent show.

“This will become Dubai’s epic showpiece and one of those ‘must see’ attractions when you come to Dubai”, La Perle’s head of sales, Kent Cooper, told the Greek Travel Pages (GTP) on the sidelines of the recent World Travel Market (WTM) 2016 trade show in London.

La Perle, produced by cultural creative company Dragone, from the mind of former Cirque du Soleil show creator Franco Dragone, will take place in a state of the art, 1,300 capacity, theatre near The W Hotel. Referred to by the director as an “incredible machine”, the theatre will house the most advanced technical resources.

The show’s story will be written by Franco Dragone in Dubai and embody the spirit of the “lavatory of the future”, as he refers to the city. Currently 65 performers from all over the world are being trained to perform at La Perle.

“A lot of what you’ll see in the show is very cutting edge. There’s technology involved in our show that has never been used in shows before and that’s what is unique about it”, Cooper said.

La Perle will operate twice a night, 10 times a week, about 450 performances a year, but always be the same show. “It is really geared towards the tourist as opposed to the local resident and that’s really the scope and scale of it”, Cooper underlined.

Aimed at becoming a once in a lifetime kind of experience in Dubai’s night time entertainment, La Perle is expected to benefit the city’s tourism industry by 100%. “We are all there for Dubai. We are here at WTM to promote and give back to Dubai… Attractions are being built and the whole objective is to give the tourists more and ideally keep them in Dubai longer and give them more to do”, Cooper underlined.

La Perle will be a visually stunning spectacle and the theater will be set in a way so up to nine people can move at the same time in a three dimensional space. In the show, the cast will be performing breathtaking aqua and aerial feats in the theatre, which itself will feature an “aqua-stage” filled with 2.7 million litres of water and will have the ability to change from a dry platform to aquatic stage and vice versa. Moreover, daredevil performers will dive from a height of 35 metres and fly around the auditorium on high-powered winches at a speed 15 km/h.

The show is expected to attract 40 percent of tourists from GCC countries, 20 percent from Europe, 20 percent from Asia and a mix from the rest of the world.

When asked by GTP if Greece was among their European markets, Cooper answered: “It is, although Greece has so many great attractions on its own that they’re competitors but when it comes down to it I think ‘the world’ is Dubai’s market and so there are attractions for everyone.”

A campaign for La Perle’s B2B travel trade partners, online and traditional, will launch in December 2016 – January 2017 and be followed by a B2C campaign in February. Tickets for La Perle will go on sale in January 2017.