The second Winter at Tantora Festival in Al Ula in Saudi Arabia has started – a three-month celebration that will showcase the very best in international music, art and culture.
It comes just months after Saudi Arabia introduced tourist visas to citizens from 49 countries making the kingdom more accessible with the UNESCO World Heritage site at Hegra in Al Ula among those featured in a global marketing campaign.
The festival is part of the Cultural Manifesto that was launched by the festival organisers, the Royal Commission for Al Ula, in Paris in October as part of a long-term strategy to transform the region and open the region as a global living museum and place of culture, heritage and the arts.
Winter at Tantora will cover 12 weekends and host a wide range of events from the world-famous Dakar Rally, international ballooning festival, the world’s second longest endurance horse race, the world’s first desert polo tournament and will welcome pop-up restaurants from globally renowned restaurants.
The mirrored wall Maraya Theatre with its 500-seat capacity and operatic sound quality will be home throughout the festival to some of the world’s leading performers who range from Omar Khairat to Andrea Bocelli.
Royal Commission for Al Ula CEO Amr Al Madani said: “Festival visitors will be given a unique opportunity to visit and experience one of the world’s undiscovered places and its spectacular heritage sites before we reopen them to the world in October 2020.
“They will get a tantalising glimpse of a place that been a cultural crossroads for thousands of years and the chance to see it from the serenity of a hot air balloon; the adrenaline of soaring over the desert and mountains in an open seater biplane or exploring hidden canyons in traditional vintage Land Rovers.”
The Royal Commission for AlUla has also completed major infrastructure work at Al Ula airport, increasing capacity fourfold to 400,000 visitors a year and upgrading local mountain resorts to enhance the visitor experience.
Authentic Al Ula, the opening weekend, is a celebration to mark the start of the winter planting season at the iconic Tantora sundial from which the festival is named. It is the first of 12 specially themed weekends.
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