The Game Changer: Venture Lifestyle’s Rabih Mokbel On Hosting Concerts At The Pyramids & Building An Empire On Trust

Shakira is set to perform in front of the Pyramids of Giza, Nov. 28 – almost 20 years since her last visit to Cairo in 2007, when she brought her “Oral Fixation Tour” to one of the most spectacular open-air sites on earth.

A lot has changed since then, especially in terms of overall live infrastructure and what fans can expect from a open-air show, and a lot of this development is down to the work of Venture Lifestyle, promoter of Shakira’s long-awaited return to the country, and go-to company for global touring artists, who want to venture into Egypt and the wider region.

Pollstar spoke with to Rabih Mokbel, founder and CEO of the Venture Lifestyle Group, to talk about his unique and fascinating life story, which didn’t begin in live entertainment at all, but eventually made him one of the region’s most influential and successful promoters.

Mokbel comes from a f&b, hospitality & hotel management background. He began as a waiter at the age of 15, and eventually earned his Bachelor’s degree in Hotel, Motel, and Restaurant Management from the American University in Dubai.

Waiting tables was a practical choice rather than a passionate one, but Mokbel quickly found that he had a knack for hosting people and making them feel welcome and comfortable. He took a job at SkyBar in Beirut at the age of 17, and found that he wasn’t just a natural at hosting, but at selling as well. He got promoted quickly, and was managing the venue within two years, becoming one of the youngest managers of a major hospitality operation anywhere between Lebanon and Abu Dhabi.

Mokbel remained with the operation through 2009, when the company brought him to Egypt to open a SkyBar in Cairo. “It put me on the map in the Middle East, because anybody rich and important had to know Rabih to get a booking at this place. It exposed me to this world of important people and celebrities for the first time,” he recalls.

The launch of the SkyBar Cairo was a major success and the ambitions were huge – but the 2011 Egyptian revolution upended those plans, and Mokbel returned to Lebanon. It was the right moment to quit after eight or nine years of being an employee, and start his own company by opening a small restaurant bar in Lebanon.

His first own establishment went through the roof, which enabled him to open several more across the country: restaurants, lunch spots, a steakhouse, bars, places like Izumi in downtown Beirut, a boutique catering company, and more. He even bought used cooking oil from restaurants and sold it to Europe as a biodiesel product.

He was young, making a lot of money, feeling unstoppable, until it all abruptly ended in October of 2013. Mokbel, who used to be a thrill seeker (“I was into everything that can kill you”), suffered a massive motorbike accident that put him into a coma for just under a year.

“When I woke up,” he remembers, “I found out that everything I had built was lost. Because the one big mistake I had made was that I was a one-man show. I had a big team within my company, but no number two, no one who knew what I knew. So, I woke up about $7 million in debt, and had to start all over again.”

That was mid-2014. When Mokbel got back on his feet, the hustle began all over again. But Lebanon’s economy was starting to decline, the first signs of the outright crash that followed in 2019, but which hardly anyone could foresee at that time.

Mokbel, occupied with reducing his debt in a shrinking economy, then met famous Egyptian billionaire Naguib Sawiris, who, in 2016, advised Mokbel to come to Egypt once again. The revolution had ended, marking a new political era, and the country was doing well. It was the right time.

While on his way to Egypt, traveling on the billionaire’s private jet, Sawiris told him that he wanted Mokbel to organize the opening party of the El Gouna Film Festival 2017, of which Sawiris is the founder.

It was the first time Mokbel organized an event from scratch, but he once again turned out to be a natural. And while he continued to open restaurants, he fell in love with events that year. For several years, Mokbel remained a household name for events in El Gouna, including a famous two to three-day New Year’s Eve party, which resulted in the destination being fully booked in terms of accommodation all year long.

His arrival back in Egypt also marked the launch of Venture Lifestyle, the mother company under which he runs every aspect of his business portfolio.

Mokbel began asking locals about artists they would like to see perform in the country. Iconic German-Bosnian DJ Solomun was on top of everyone’s list, and Mokbel made it happen. He found out from Solomun’s manager that the only reason they had never played Egypt was because nobody had agreed to pay their fee. And that’s when Mokbel realized that there were a bunch of local promoters, “who were monopolizing the market, and did not want people to get used to big names, because they were making so much more money by getting a DJ for $2,000 instead of $100,000. I did my P&L on Solomun, and decided to do it. We skyrocketed, everyone started knowing my name.”

Bedouin, Adriatique, Peggy Gou, and others quickly followed, and Mokbel became the go-to promoter for international electronic music in Egypt.

Queue another chance encounter, this time with Jennifer Lopez in Houston, TX, which led to an opportunity to bring the superstar to Egypt. J-Lo’s 2019 concert in New Alamein City on the North Coast took tings to another level for Mokbel. It marked the first ticketed live concert by an international pop star in Egypt since Shakira came in 2007, and his team nailed it: “25,000 people, no mistakes, people were in and out the venue in 15 minutes – a real success, and that put us on the map,” says Mokbel.

The list of international stars Venture Lifestyle has promoted in Egypt and the wider region since includes Katy Perry, John Legend, Black Eyed Peas, Backstreet Boys, Demi Levato, Russ, and others.

Mokbel opened a club in Qatar for the World Cup in 2022, and, back in Lebanon, partnered with Factory People that same year, which expanded his circle in the entertainment world, and allowed him to book artists across multiple territories instead of one.

Today, Mokbel runs businesses across the Middle East, including Lebanon, Egypt, Qatar, Dubai and Abu Dhabi. His portfolio comprises 11 brands in total. All aspects of the business, from live entertainment to hospitality to corporate events, are coming together under the Venture Lifestyle brand. All electronic and house music related project run under the Plus brand.

Trust has been the key to his success. He got all of the above-mentioned superstars because he delivered and never made promises he couldn’t keep while growing his business.

“Don’t laugh at me,” he says, “but for my J-Lo event, I flew in my entire team from my club in Lebanon: the head of security, the entire maintenance team, all hostesses, the technical manager, the stage manager – I flew in everyone I trusted, who’ve been with me for 10,20, years to make sure that, at least at my first event, no one could fuck things up. And I kept doing that at all my events until I had enough local Egyptian people that I trusted.”

When he booked J-Lo in 2019, he was still in massive debt. So, he called up some friends to secure the funds to cover the concert production and J-Lo’s fee, promising to pay them back within six months. Instead, “I ended up paying them back 21 days after I announced the concerts, because sales were so good. This established credibility with these people, who would now also give me $10 million if I needed it.”

What also helped with the debt situation was the economic crisis Lebanon plummeted into that same year. Turns out, when in debt, a massive devaluation of money is a good thing.

After the concert, Mokbel was debt-free, and it’s been nothing but growth since then. “We do about $45 million of turnover from only couple of events a year, but they’re big ones. And we opened Ticketegypt.com to also leverage the ticketing business,” he says.

The next big one will be Shakira, performing in front of the Pyramids of Giza, Nov. 28. She was supposed to perform three months ago already, but the war in the region made everybody postpone their plans. Once it became clear that Egypt is completely staying out of the conflict, a new date was set.

Like with everything in Mokbel’s career, the initial setback of having to postpone turned into a great blessing, because the Colombian singer generated some significant extra buzz from her FIFA World Cup performance in the meantime.

The spot where Venture Lifestyle/Plus host their Pyramid shows is about 300 meters away from the famous monuments. According to Mokbel, “it’s one of the best locations to do an event ever, albeit not the easiest.”

Getting a permit to host events at such a historic site is a bureaucratic minefield. Artists need to be mindful of what they’re wearing and saying on stage; alcohol sales cannot be prominently advertised; no flags are allowed on site; no projections on the Pyramids, obviously; no fire nor gas can be used in the production; and organizers aren’t allowed to dig into the soil, not even by a centimeter, during build up.

“The Pyramids are a sensitive topic,” says Mokbel, “if you mess up there, it blows up in the minister’s face. It’s a tough vetting process, but we built this trust with the government bit by bit, and now we have the privilege of selecting dates before anyone else.”

The ministry of tourism and antiquities partnered up with Venture Lifestyle on renovating and reviving few of most iconic Egyptian historical venues like the Egyptian Museum’s Garden in the heart of Cairo, Sakkara’s pyramid/premises as a destination, Mohamed Ali Palace, and others.

In order to build this kind of trust with both private and public players, one has to know the culture. It’s not possible for foreigners to just come in and take over. Some big international companies have tried to host events at the Pyramids, and failed.

“In Egypt,” Mokbel explains, “when you first enter the market, they’re a bit hesitant to let you enter their circle of trust. It’s akin to taking a girl out on your first date. Don’t rush things. Don’t ask for things. It’s not easy to gain their trust, because so many big companies, big developers, big brands fail to deliver what they promise.

“I never promised anything I couldn’t deliver. I never promised a name I didn’t get, or a production I couldn’t deliver. I never promised a guest list that didn’t attend in the end, and I never fucked anyone over. We’re always clear, and fully transparent.

“We put ourselves in the shoes of the audience, and ask ourselves, what do they like, what do they hate, how do we make things better. Today, you see happy people at live events across the Middle East having the time of their lives. That wasn’t always the case.

“The hospitality scene has changed after Venture Lifestyle entered the market. This is a true statement, and the accomplishment I’m proudest of.”

Subscribe to Pollstar HERE