The grandest of all festivals to ever take place in the Arab region was so successfully hosted by Saudi Arabia that it broke records and jaws in just three days.
The jam-packed electronic event titled MDL Beast - a "Middle East" pun, it seems - wrapped up on Saturday in a closing night that saw the attendance of over 115,000 people, bringing the total turnout up to a whopping 400,000.
The third and final day opened with Omar Basaad, a Saudi record producer, record label owner, and a DJ. Another local artist, Mohannad Nassar aka Vinyl Mode, also dominated the stage, which all the more drew positive attention to the event thanks to its good number of Saudi performers.
In total, MDL Beast featured over 22 ensembles from all around the world including regional and international stars like R3HAB, Afrojack, Steve Aoki, David Guetta, Salvatore Ganacci, and Sebastian Ingrosso.
The festival had five main stages that were built on-site for the sake of the three-day event. Electronic music bands, performance artists, and culinary stars each dominated a stage.
One of the latter was so grand it won a Guinness World Record for the "world's tallest temporary stage," Saudi Gazette reported.
MDL Beast was pretty impressive
It featured sold-out concerts
"I can't get over tonight"
A huge success
Saudi Arabia has completely transformed its entertainment scene
Saudi Arabia has been working on building its entertainment scene for the past few years as part of the country's Vision 2030. Under the ambitious blueprint, the country established an Entertainment Authority in 2016 tasked with overseeing, organizing, and hosting musical, cultural, and art events all over the kingdom.
In the years since its establishment, the country's previously conservative entertainment scene underwent major transformations.
Musical concerts performed by international artists and women are now held in the kingdom, cinemas are opening up, and the country is slowly going into the fashion industry.
Now headed by Turki Al Al-Sheikh, the authority is taking entertainment to a new level. Earlier this year, the official announced a grand plan for 2019 and so far most of its points have materialized.
