Dubai: Saudi Arabia’s Ministry of Culture announced that the National Festival of Heritage and Culture (Al Janadriyah) will be postponed to the first quarter of 2021 due to the coronavirus pandemic.
The postponement comes in line with the ministry’s keenness to ensure the safety of visitors and implement the kingdom’s decisions on precautionary measures to prevent the spread of COVID-19 and safeguard the health of the community.
The 2021 edition of the annual festival will be the first to be organised by the Ministry of Culture. The 34 previous editions were organised by the Ministry of National Guard since its launch in 1985.
The two-week cultural festival, which was previously scheduled to take place in November 2020, is a nationwide celebration of the country’s rich cultural legacy.
The ministry has prepared a three-year strategy in keeping with the Saudi Vision 2030 to develop the cultural content of the festival’s upcoming edition, which will feature an array of heritage-related events and various cultural activities and programmes reflecting the country’s deeply rooted heritage.
The strategy aims to enrich the festival with a diverse content that makes it an international cultural hub to attract visitors from different countries from across the world.
The festival features a variety of activities, traditional sports, folk dancing, living history, falconry, and traditional arts and crafts where each province is represented by their own pavilions.
