MAIN ATTRACTION: Rahat Fateh Ali Khan will perform at a live concert, organised by Apex Events, here in January next year.
Sana Salman is GM and a partner in Apex Events.
From its humble beginning six years ago, Apex Events Qatar has risen to provide
complete management solutions for major events. By Umer Nangiana
Beginning as a startup six years ago, they have come a long way to get their name associated with some of the big names and popular shows in recent years.
From providing complete management solutions involving logistics and staffing for events like IGN Convention, UNODC joint partnership signing ceremony, GAS vehicle launch to organising concerts and shows for different local communities, Apex Events Qatar has roped in one of the popular singers from South Asia, Ustad Rahat Fateh Ali Khan, for a live concert in January next year.
Khan will be touring Qatar for the first time and is expected to attract a large audience.
“It will be the highlight of all the events that we are planning for the next few months. Rahat Fateh Ali Khan would be going live in Qatar for the first time and the concert is scheduled to take place in January next year at the West End Park Amphitheatre,” Sana Salman, the General Manager of Apex Events, told Community. Javed Khatri is the Director of the company.
“We are expecting more than 15,000 people in audience as Khan has big fan following from India and Nepal besides Pakistan and other countries,” said Sana.
For the event, they have a huge support from many big institutions from Qatar. They are planning a proper press conference sometime in November to reveal more details about the sponsors and the event itself. Tickets will also be launched at the occasion.
Rahat’s concert is just one of the events that the company is planning to bring to Doha audience in the coming few months.
“We are planning a series of events. First up, in November sometime, we are organising the launch of new Honda Pilot vehicle here in Qatar,” the GM of the company told Community. Having complete and separate production unit, the company deals with everything in event management from licensing to organisation of the event.
In case a company is not based in Qatar but wants to hold an event here, Apex provides them with solutions for licensing from different departments here besides doing the complete RSVP for them and managing the logistics of the event.
On the production side, they have a team of 20 people who provide with complete logistic solutions for the events ranging from setting up the required infrastructure to provision of equipment.
“We recently arranged and organised many events during Eid celebrations here. We provided the logistic support for the Eid al-Adha show Aladdin at City Centre here. We also provided a lot of mascot characters that people saw in different malls here in Qatar during Eid celebrations. We do fun activities for children such as bouncing castles, face painting, mascots and others,” said Sana.
She said they do have some local artists that they can provide for events, however, depending on the clients’ requirements they can also arrange for foreign artists. One of the biggest events that Apex organised was ASEAN Gala Dinner by Malaysian embassy in which more than 150 artists were flown in from different countries.
There were fire jugglers, LED dancers, and some of the top magicians and illusionists. Apex has also the biggest gaming exhibit, the IGN Convention here in Qatar. From helping with licensing to the logistic support for the event, they did everything. It is one of the biggest gaming exhibitions and Apex intends to remain associated with it for coming years as well.
Sana said Qatar has many communities living here and every community has its own events. With the government changing laws in order to have more participation from the expatriate community and to allow more tourism activity, there are going to be more events in future. “I think we are getting more and more bigger and better events here in Qatar and it is only going to improve from here,” said the GM of Apex.
“The government is very helpful in getting the events organised throughout the year. We are in touch with Qatar Tourism Authority (QTA) to hold some big events particularly for the South Asian community here in Qatar as well as people from the region,” she added.
For instance, she said, they are getting a lot of feedback from the expatriates in Saudi Arabia who want to attend the Rahat Fateh Ali Khan’s concert. He usually performs in Dubai and this the first time he is coming to Doha so it is easy for the people nearby to come and see him perform.
Sana said their company is a startup established six years ago. They are continuously trying to incorporate new ideas and go bigger and better with every event.
