First YouTube Space in MENA region launched at Dubai Studio City
YouTube announced on Sunday the opening of the Middle East and North Africa’s first YouTube Space at Dubai Studio City, a facility dedicated to supporting the growing creator community in the region by giving them access to a state-of-the-art production space.
The Space, the 10th in the world, is dedicated to YouTube content creators who will have free access to high-end audio, visual and editing equipment in addition to training programs, workshops and courses. More than 440,000 creators have visited nine YouTube Spaces around the world since the program first launched in 2012.
“Creators are the heartbeat of YouTube and supporting them has long been one of our most important priorities. We’re proud of the meteoric rise of Arabic content on YouTube, which has been spearheaded by a diverse and growing community of creators from different parts of the Arab world. We want the YouTube Space in Dubai to be a hub where creators don’t just continue to make the videos millions of people have grown to love but to also experiment with new formats and ideas made possible by the Space’s production facilities.
As a platform, YouTube provides a blank canvas for creative expression and the Space will be one of the tools creators use to tell their own stories,” said David Ripert, head of YouTube Spaces in Europe, Middle East, and Africa.
“We are very pleased to be selected as a hub for the region’s first YouTube space. In today’s world, content creation is very valuable and depicts meaningful content to the public. With the launch of the YouTube space, Dubai Studio City aims to cultivate a collaborative environment where like-minded people can create innovative content, which can cross borders and impact a wide and diverse audience,” said Majed Al-Suwaidi, managing director of Dubai Studio City.
The Spaces program is designed to support creators of all levels. Channels with 1,000 subscribers or more will have access to the workshops and events held at the Space; creators with more than 10,000 subscribers will be able to access the production facilities which include two sound-proof studios, editing equipment, state-of-theart cameras and microphones, as well as a control room.