MDL Beast is the largest music, arts and culture festival in Saudi Arabia. It just won a Guinness World Record certificate for the world’s tallest temporary stage. Over 400,000 people in attendance got to enjoy this stage.
H.E. Turki Abdulmohsen Al-AlSheikh, Chairman of the General Entertainment Authority hopes this is the first of many cultural, artistic, and entertainment experiences brought to this country. Saudi Arabia is rich with legacy, culture, and capabilities. Their landscape brings color to great scale for many things. Having a music festival here opens them more to the world and invites others to come and experience what they have to offer. Citizens are proud to have attracted the best local and international talent to Riyadh, the heart of the Kingdom. Let’s see what next year brings and what stage they can concoct next.
It’s an interesting award but one nonetheless. We’re excited to see some EDM come up in their ranks. Here is the Big Beast stage. It holds a crowd of 45,000 plus and hosted sets from an outstanding lineup including Martin Garrix, Tiësto, David Guetta, Afrojack, Monsta X, R3hab, Steve Aoki and Sebastian Ingrosso and more.
“What I like about this festival is that it’s very different – it’s a complete fusion, some Arab artists and a lot of international DJs and it all works really well. I think that’s very special and I’ve never seen that before.”-Dutch-Moroccan DJ, R3hab
Win Some, Lose Some
As huge a success as it was, this festival also had its concerns. Recently, its influencers received backlash for attending and promoting the event. Race crimes have been seen across women and the LGBTQ community. Additionally, police arrested 24 people for sexual harassment at the event. Some say the government paid extra to rehabilitate the country’s image after the murder of journalist Jamal Ahmad Khashoggi in 2018.
