YouTube has announced 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.
The Space, the tenth in the world, is dedicated to YouTube content creators who will have free access to audio, visual and editing equipment in addition to training programmes, workshops and courses. More than 440,000 creators have visited nine YouTube Spaces around the world since the Spaces programme 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,” said David Ripert, Head of YouTube Spaces in Europe, Middle East, and Africa.
He added, “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.”
Majed Al Suwaidi, Managing Director of Dubai Studio City, “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.”
The Spaces programme 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, while creators with more than 10,000 subscribers will be able to access the production facilities which include two sound-proof studios, editing equipment, cameras and microphones, as well as a control room.
The Space comes at an important time for YouTube in MENA as the Arab world experiences an increase in the number of channels uploading from MENA countries by 160% in the past three years. Today, there are more than 200 channels with over 1 million subscribers in MENA, and over 30,000 channels with more than 10,000 subscribers.
Production slots will be limited in the first two months after the launch until after Ramadan when eligible creators will be able to book their production sessions through the online booking form.
