Ne-Yo, Leona and Taio entertain 15,000

Dubai Sports City thundered with the sounds of eight musical hot shots on Friday as 15,000 music lovers gathered for the first Atelier Live Dance Arena festival, headlined by US R&B star Ne-Yo, delivering on his promise to his Dubai fans to make it a night to remember.

His last performance in the UAE left many fans disappointed when it turned out to be a club appearance. Ne-Yo erased all memories of that when he took to the stage, teasing the crowd to "come closer", a line from one of his biggest hits. The Tonight singer brought an entourage of dancers, a band and all those Michael-Jackson-inspired dance moves to boot, as he worked his way through a full set after midnight. More recent hits One in a Million and Champagne Life joined the massive Beautiful Monster, Miss Independent and So Sick as Shaffer Chimere Smith, Jr. (as he's known to his mum) shared her relationship advice. "She told me, ‘Never go to bed mad.' So I wrote a song about it," he said, launching into Mad from his spot on the catwalk extending from the stage out into the audience. He was followed by DJ sets from Edward Maya and Amelle Berrabah.

Paul Roy, Chairman of RIVA Group, the company behind the event, said, "We organised the line-up in a day and then we got exactly a month to book the venue, issue the passes. The last few days have been very hectic but the 15,000 turnout was well worth it."

The venue's location was a struggle for some fans, who didn't know where to park their car and complained of poor signage. "It was really difficult to find the way here and after reaching here we didn't know where to park. There were no proper signs," said Samantha O'Sullivan, while Rakan Adi felt that given the stadium is huge, there should have been more people. "I expected a bigger crowd than this and the stadium should have been completely packed. But I loved the arrangements. It was very convenient."