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Written by Gene Convery.
As someone that lived in the Middle East for almost 7 years, I have a great love for that part of the world. The people are amazing with a deep, rich culture. However, I lived in Dubai, which is known as the most liberal of the wider Middle East.
Saudi is a whole different thing, with strict laws on women's rights, men and women even being seen together in public if you are not related, their religious police and what some would call Human Rights violations. I am not even sure how many people would even be issued visas to get into the country to attend the festival that will be completely DRY!
HOW ARE THEY GOING TO HAVE A MUSIC FESTIVAL??
Yet, here it is here nonetheless, called MDL Beast Festival. They are doing something that many festivals try and steer away from. B2B sets with Afrojack B2B R3HAB, Black Coffee B2B Marco Carola, Camelphat B2B Fisher, David Guetta B2B Steve Aoki, Salvatore Ganacci B2B Sebastian Ingrosso, and Martin Garrix b2b Tiësto.
B2B sets can be amazing or they can go very wrong; if the artists have time to play/practice together to get there flow going, then it can be one of the best experiences. If they don't it can go very south.
At Tomorrowland Weekend 1 this year, we witnessed stage host STMPD RCRDS produce a stellar line up, full of their top artists going B2B for the majority of the day, with some sets performing better unity and better transitions than others.
The Saudi's do have one thing more than anyone else on this planet, and that's CASH!! So this could be one of the best festivals we have ever seen.
There is no live stream, all social media and news outlets are heavily monitored by the government. Don't expect to hear any bad press from an internal source. I am sure we will get glowing reports of the event from official sources and that everyone had nothing but an amazing time.
What really happens, I don't think anyone will really know unless you are there. If you do know someone going please get them to reach out!
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