Seeing Justin Bieber live in Dubai - once in a lifetime experience’ |19 May 2017

Who does not want to realise a childhood dream or just a fantasy? Most of us want to see in action our favourite actor, singer, footballer, models or any person who in our minds are ‘special’. Indeed, for the Parekh/Andre family, that dream came true.

“Before I travel to Dubai, I usually check what will be happening and what can my family do while we are there. We planned to leave Seychelles on Sunday May 7 but while checking online, I found out that Justin Bieber will be in concert for one night only on May 6 at the Autism Rocks Arena. There were only a few days left for us to book our tickets to Dubai and I decided to send a message to the family members who were going for the trip, mentioning them about Justin’s concert. At first not even my teenage daughter was excited as she said if she is not sure that they are really going to the concert, she will not get excited. Other members were saying that they will be tired as they would be working till late night on Friday and Saturday. Then I said that this would be only once in a lifetime chance that we will be getting to see a live show of such a great artist as chances are slim that Justin Bieber will ever come to perform in Seychelles!” narrated Savita Parekh.

Once everybody was on board, she bought the tickets online. To her pleasant surprise, her hubby decided to tag along and live the experience.

“A friend of my daughter’s also wanted to come and once everything was confirmed with her parents, she was also in the crew.

“We arrived at the hotel at 3pm on Saturday and the gate at the concert opened at 4pm. After a small break, off we went to the concert,” Savita recalled.

As for Sona Parekh, she used to be a great fan of Justin Bieber, but after she heard that her favourite singer was involved in drugs she said “I gave up on him as it was a waste of time.  But after watching his show, I am back to be a ‘Belieber’”- (Fan of Bieber). The tickets we got allowed us to see him and with the big screens, he was as if he was singing next to us. Also one thing we noticed is that the place was very secure. The consumption of alcohol was controlled and there were security everywhere. We felt really safe.”

Justin Bieber gave a two-hour show non-stop and tickets were sold out for this show. Our Seychellois friends were thrilled to see this young Canadian pop superstar on stage and Savita and Sona concluded in these terms: “We always watch people shouting and excited during a live concert on TV, but experiencing it was the highlight of our trip to Dubai. We think there will be another time, if the possibility is there and this time, we will gather our friends to go with us.”

Compiled by V. Gappy