David Powell was standing backstage at a New Year’s show when Alicia Keys stopped mid-preparation to spend five minutes talking with the team that had brought her to Abu Dhabi, and they had to gently remind her she had a job to do. That small, unhurried exchange captures something essential about what Ethara, the live entertainment company Powell leads, has spent 17 years building on Yas Island: a reputation warm enough that the world’s biggest performers come not just to work, but to linger. For fans and artists alike, the question is no longer whether Abu Dhabi is worth the journey. The question is who gets to come next.
From pitching Abu Dhabi to Abu Dhabi pitching itself
Powell’s record stretches across more than 100 AAA artists, from AC/DC through to Jay-Z, across a span he describes as a continuous push to raise the benchmark. In the early years, his team had to tell the story of the city. Now, he says, the conversation has shifted entirely. ‘Convincing artists used to be difficult because we used to tell the story of Abu Dhabi. Now it is much easier because they know Abu Dhabi, they know the hospitality and the brilliant venues that we have to showcase their talents.’
The mechanics of booking are less glamorous than the marquee names suggest. Powell and his team work multiple time zones simultaneously, talking to agents, managers, and artists themselves about touring schedules that can stretch years into the future. Some artists, he notes, are already telling Ethara they will not be back on tour until 2028. The conversations happening now are for audiences that do not yet know they are buying tickets.
For an artist returning to Abu Dhabi, the pitch is almost unnecessary. Christina Aguilera, confirmed for the Etihad Arena in September, previously performed at Saadiyat Nights, an open-air amphitheater on Saadiyat Island that Powell describes as a beautiful venue. She has already seen the crowd, the hotels, the production quality. Gwen Stefani played that same stage and kept stopping her performance, unable to believe how many people in the audience knew every word and had traveled, as she put it in her own words, to the other side of the world.
The living room is Ethara’s toughest competitor
Powell is clear-eyed about the structural challenge facing every live event company. ‘Our number one competitor is people’s living rooms,’ he said. Formula 1 broadcast production is exceptional. Watching from a sofa is free and comfortable. The counterargument Ethara makes is not about the sport or the concert alone. It is about what Powell calls community living experiences: sharing a moment with thousands of other people in a place that cannot be replicated on a screen.
The Abu Dhabi Grand Prix now runs across a full week rather than the traditional Thursday-to-Sunday window. This year, Andrea Bocelli performs a Wednesday-night classical concert under the banner Yasalam Classics, a category Powell says had never existed in the event’s lineup before. After-parties at Gateway Park push from midnight into the early morning hours, with Afterlife having performed one year from midnight through to 5 a.m.
Included within a Grand Prix ticket: access to watch the race and qualifying, music stages, fan zones, family areas, Yas Island theme parks including Ferrari World and Warner Bros., and this year, the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi.
The two names still on the wish list
Powell’s team has welcomed Beyonce, Ed Sheeran, Metallica, Eminem, Coldplay, Jennifer Lopez, and dozens of others. Lopez performed at the Etihad Arena on a Tuesday night in mid-July, a sold-out show that Powell says marked a turning point in how people understood Abu Dhabi’s summer calendar. She came off a physically exhausting tour, finished a nearly two-hour show, and still stayed afterward to meet families with children.
Two names remain conspicuously absent. ‘The two artists who we have never brought to Abu Dhabi before, and they are everyone’s favorites, are Taylor Swift and Adele,’ Powell said. He is not pessimistic. He is, as he put it, thinking about it positively.
Jennifer Lopez, mid-July, sold out on a school night
The Etihad Arena on that Tuesday evening in July sits as its own small argument for everything Ethara is trying to prove: that the summer calendar is real, that families travel for it, that the venue fills on a weeknight in the heat.
Powell’s staff average more than eight years with the company. Some have been there since Ethara was founded, 17 years ago. The hours are long. Events happen at weekends. The reason the team stays, he says, is the same reason the crowds keep coming: the thrill of delivering an experience and watching people walk away happy.
