Established in 1999 by industry leader and pioneer Stephen Lakin, Protec is a quality-driven, client-centred, turnkey event production, equipment rental, staging, and fabrication company with operations in the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, and the United Kingdom.

Protec was founded after Stephen started from scratch, grew, and took public two successful AV industry businesses. Firstly, Viewplan in the UK, a company that carved out a significant place in the market providing AV and production equipment for broadcast and events, followed by Gearhouse, a global powerhouse which became the largest production hire company in the world with 63 branches spanning five continents and just under 3,000 employees.

After a brief retirement in 1999, Stephen started to consider a new company based in the Middle East that would offer a world-class service on par with any major city globally. Protec was and still is a passion project, born out of a vision and desire to provide the world’s best available technical solutions locally in the Middle East. With this vision in mind, Stephen won a large project in Saudi Arabia to launch the Faisaliah Tower. He purchased twenty 40ft containers of industry-leading equipment. This initial job and investment led to Protec setting up in Dubai and growing into an award-winning, market-leading company over the next 20+ years.

That goal of investing in the best equipment and the most passionate, highly skilled event professionals remains constant to this day. Protec is a passion project, a legacy, and has kept true to its key values of delivering high-quality, creative, and safe event production solutions.

With fully operational branches in the UAE, KSA, and the UK, Protec has since expanded to offer that same award-winning approach to our clients across the Middle East, UK, and Europe – world-class solutions with a local touch. Sharing a vast global inventory worth over $80m, Protec can deliver any major event anywhere.