Tamer Hosny and Mahmoud El Esseily Rock the Amphitheater

Egyptian singers Tamer Hosny and Mahmoud El Esseily rocked AUC’s packed amphitheater keeping the audience on their feet and dancing in the aisles during the Developers Club’s Volt Festival on November 9.

Hosny, who returned to the AUC stage for the second time in his career, was the consummate performer immediately drawing in the audience who sang along to his songs word for word.

He engaged the audience directly when he held an impromptu competition quizzing them about his personal interests. The winners were called on stage and allowed to request their favorite songs for him to perform.

Hosny also surprised the audience when he brought on stage superstars Ahmed Sheba and Mostafa Hagag to sing their famous song 100 Wesh, Arabic for “100 faces”.

Hosny ended his performance after three hours but the audience was still hungry for more.

Enter comedian Hesham Afifi, who opened for Esseily while the crew and roadies rejigged the stage.

While his segment was significantly shorter than Hosny’s, Esseily captivated the audience with his popular songs such as his new hit ‘Helm Beeid’ (Faraway Dream).

Audience members who spoke to The Caravan said the concert was one of the best they had been to in recent years.

“The concert was well organized. The lighting and the sound system were very good and the music was not too loud in a disturbing way,” said Business Administration junior Hana Ghamry.

Petroleum Engineering sophomore Abdelhamid Charaf was a little upset that Esseily took too long to begin his performance but added that “overall, the organization was amazing and I did not get bothered”.

Developers Club President Omar Bahaa said that first-year members were entirely tasked with concert organization to help develop their skills and expose them to new experiences.

“Our main purpose was for them to handle everything from A to Z except for the day of the concert. We sold 4688 tickets so we needed people who understand how concerts are handled with enough experience to guide them and hand out tasks,” Bahaa said. 

The club was overwhelmed by student response to the concert.

Ticketsmarche, a company in charge of selling tickets for different venues, was responsible for selling the Volt Festival tickets. They started selling them three weeks before the concert, but were sold out in the first week.

A black market soon developed due to demand, with tickets going for triple the original price.

“If we knew that we would finish that early we would have started selling the tickets a week or two weeks maximum before the concert to minimize the [influence of the] black market,” Bahaa said.