ABU DHABI, UAE (CelebrityAccess) — Anghami Inc., a music and entertainment streaming platform serving the Middle East and North Africa, announced the acquisition of regional live entertainment company Spotlight Events.
The deal will see Spotlight Events become produce live events and concerts for Anghami, including offline activities and activations and will expand Anghami’s presence in the non-digital music and entertainment ecosystem.
Along with Spotlight Events focus on live, Anghami will leverage its technology by providing access to exclusive concerts through its live video streaming capabilities as well as augmented and virtual reality.
As well, Anghami will expand opportunities to artists and brands with exclusive access to private concerts, VIP lounges, meet & greets and backstage access.
Spotlight Events recently confirmed a slate of concerts and events across the Middle East and North Africa, including “Beat the Heat”, a 7-concert festival organized in collaboration with the Department of Tourism and Commerce Marketing – Dubai (DTCM).
Spotlight also has 6 concert events in the works for Abu Dhabi this year, as well as an upcoming concert in Paris by Arab superstar Wael Kfoury.
Spotlight will also be executing all of Anghami’s events, including “Amr Diab Live” along with other events that will be revealed in the coming weeks.
“Our vision is to expand from music streaming to a fully integrated entertainment platform that meets our goal of building our own unique category that no other provider can compete with. This partnership will allow us to deliver unique experiences to our users while giving artists a stage to perform and reach their fans physically and virtually. Spotlight and Anghami Lab are among a number of initiatives we plan to develop as new business extensions to accelerate our growth and improve our margins while widening the gap with our competitors. Maher has built a great business on solid economics and has proven that live concerts and events are a scalable and profitable business,” said Eddy Maroun, Co-founder and CEO of Anghami.
“Anghami is the largest music platform in the MENA region with an incredible number of users and a unique network of partnerships that, once connected to Spotlight, will open doors to amazing opportunities. Our offline expertise, complemented by Anghami’s reach, data and technical capabilities, is the perfect recipe for success. We look forward to being part of this dynamic team and unleashing the incredible potential to bring the best to music fans, artists and brands and take entertainment to the next level,” added Maher Khawkhaji, Founder and CEO of Spotlight.