Pioneering tech-led experiences in the Middle East: the rise of A Loud Minority

It’s not every day you meet a co-founder like A Loud Minority’s Karl Jenkins. Not only did he work on the Lord of the Rings films while completing his degree in Performing Arts Management, he also spent ten years touring the globe with Cirque du Soleil. 

"I’d done a work placement with Cirque du Soleil during my degree, and after graduation, I took a production manager role at a regional theatre. That’s when Cirque du Soleil got back in touch with a lighting technician job,” Jenkins recalls. “It was in Europe, and they needed me there by the end of the week. I jumped at the chance and ran away with the circus!" 

A decade later, Jenkins decided to stop living out of a suitcase. He joined theatre company Dragone in Macau and later in Dubai, rising to the title of Technical Director of La Perle. He then took a job at Expo, where he became Head of Technical Production. “My experience at Expo showed me there was a real market for a company that could bridge the gap between entertainment producers and technical vendors and suppliers,” Jenkins explains. “That’s why I decided to start A Loud Minority (ALM).”

The birth of ALM

At ALM, Jenkins is now often involved in projects from early concept development through to delivery. Together with his team, he helps shape the creative vision behind events such as festivals, exhibitions, concerts and live performances, with a focus on projects in Asia and the Middle East. ALM then translates that creative vision into reality by working closely with partners, vendors and clients on everything from lighting through to immersive soundscapes and LED effects to bring everything to life.

“Our normal process is that we will enter a production, write all of the technical documentation and scoping documents, and then lead the procurement process,” says Jenkins. “We assess everything from our experience on projects of a similar scale, then make a point of rationalising what needs to be done. We can question things and be an advocate for the client, ensuring that best practice is followed to keep standards high, while maintaining control over costs.”

For years, Disguise has been selected as the software and hardware solution on a wide range of these projects, particularly where flexibility, scale and reliability were critical. “I tend to use Disguise as a creative enabler rather than just a playback system,” Jenkins continues. 

“Workflow-wise, I like building systems that allow for rapid iteration during rehearsals. I want to keep creative changes possible late in the process and make it easy for operators to run systems under pressure. Disguise helps us achieve all of this by integrating with lighting, timecode and show control, making the whole system feel cohesive rather than siloed. That means that from early on, we can consider how content, timing, spatial relationships and system architecture all interact, not just how files get from A to B.”

Working on Terhal

According to Jenkins, one standout use case of Disguise was in ALM’s work on the revival of Terhal, a high-spectacle theatrical performance created by Dragone in collaboration with the Saudi Ministry of Culture. “We originally partnered with Dragone for the launch of Terhal back in 2023 to take on the technical production scope, completing all the pre-production work, planning and liaising with vendors and designers before handing over to the Dragone team for the show delivery,” says Jenkins. “The show was a huge success. So we were asked back to help elevate a second run in 2025, this time covering full end-to-end production - bringing in our own design and operational technical team, carpentry, and even acrobatic riggers on site.”

Alongside the success of Terhal, the team has since been busy, branching out into other events across the Middle East, including music festivals like Waterbomb and UNTOLD. 

Immersive in the Middle East

This growth in scope for the second run of Terhal reflects ALM’s overall growth as a company, expanding from 14 to 97 in just a year. “We’re increasingly being asked to work on projects in the very early stages in more of a consultancy role,” he explains. 

“We’re also being asked to bring our technical production knowledge into projects that sometimes won’t exist for another five years. When I began in this industry, immersive experiences were often layered onto existing spaces. Today, the built environment is no longer a backdrop; it’s a co-author. In the Middle East especially, we’re seeing architecture conceived not just as form, but as an experiential framework of buildings that anticipate media, adaptability, and storytelling as part of their DNA rather than an afterthought.”

For Jenkins, this shift has made the region a very exciting one to work in. He adds that clients are often very ambitious in both scale and expectations, and frequently ask interesting questions about how technology can support emotion and narrative rather than dominate it. 

“The Middle East combines three rare conditions: ambition, speed and permission to rethink conventions,” he continues. “Crucially, immersive storytelling here is not treated as spectacle alone. It’s often tied to nation-building, cultural identity, tourism strategy and future-facing narratives, which gives the work deeper purpose and resonance. At the same time, there is significant investment in infrastructure, talent, and technology, allowing ideas to move from concept to reality at a scale few regions can match.”

This has led to Jenkins aiming to make ALM the go-to technical production house in the region. “In the future, my dream project would be a purpose-built immersive venue where story, architecture, media and technology are designed together from day one, where audiences aren’t just watching content but moving through it, influencing it, and discovering it at their own pace,” he concludes. “It’s the kind of project I’ve been hoping for my whole career, ever since the early days at Cirque du Soleil. And today, it’s the kind of project that might even already be in the works.”

Deep dive into Terhal by Dragone

Image credits: A Loud Minority and Dragone