ROYAL-COMMISSION-ALULA
19.12.2019 22:23:14 CET | Business Wire | Press release
The second Winter at Tantora Festival in AlUla in North West Saudi Arabia starts today – a three-month celebration that will showcase the very best in international music, art and culture connecting East and West as the AlUla county has done for thousands of years.
This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20191219005781/en/
It comes just months after Saudi Arabia introduced tourist visas to citizens from 49 countries making the Kingdom more accessible than ever with the UNESCO World Heritage site at Hegra in AlUla 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 AlUla, 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 from 19th December 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 welcome pop-up restaurants from globally renowned restaurants.
The spectacular 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.
Festival visitors will also be able to meet and engage with young members of the AlUla community who are benefitting from a diverse range of training programmes in hospitality; culture; nature and the environment and studying overseas including 24 men and women at the FERRANDI Paris culinary institute in Paris.
These young chefs will work alongside Michelin-starred experts during the festival creating world-class cuisine that will incorporate local ingredients from the fertile AlUla valley and blending traditional recipes with modern cuisine.
RCU CEO Amr AlMadani says: “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 AlUla airport – increasing capacity fourfold to 400,000 visitors a year and upgrading local mountain resorts to enhance the visitor experience.
AlUla will be a worldwide destination for those seeking a unique experience of the full meaning and context of landscape – an experience that integrates the natural and cultural heritage as one living environment. By safeguarding our precious landscapes and cultural heritage this open-air museum will be the Kingdom’s gift to the world creating remarkable and lasting memories.
‘Authentic AlUla’, the opening weekend, is a celebration rooted in AlUla, 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.
Notes to editors
To find out more about the Winter at Tantora festival and details of packages and the entertainment and cultural programmes, log on to www.experiencealula.com
To find out more about how the Royal Commission for AlUla is working with the community to develop a world-class tourism destination, log on to www.rcu.gov.sa
*Source: AETOSWire
View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20191219005781/en/
Link:
About Business Wire
Subscribe to releases from Business Wire
Subscribe to all the latest releases from Business Wire by registering your e-mail address below. You can unsubscribe at any time.
Latest releases from Business Wire
NIQ Publishes 2026 ESG Progress Report, Highlighting Action Across Climate, People, Communities, and Responsible AI2.11.2026 12:45:00 CET | Press release
Report details NIQ’s continued focus on responsible business, including its first climate risk assessment, expanded employee development and more than 100,000 volunteer hours NIQ (NYSE: NIQ), a leading consumer intelligence company, today released its 2026 Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) Progress Report, detailing the company’s progress on key ESG priorities throughout 2025. The report covers NIQ’s efforts across environmental responsibility, its people and communities, data integrity, and responsible AI. Key highlights from 2025 include:Strengthened its approach to climate risk and environmental measurement: NIQ conducted its first climate risk assessment aligned with Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD) recommendations, tracked Scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions under the GHG Protocol, and externally verified its carbon footprint. Invested in associate development, engagement and well-being: Internal mobility increased to 35%, up from 30%, while performance r
Agenus Announces Nature Medicine Publication of Multicenter UNICORN Phase 2 Trial Demonstrating Deep Responses with Neoadjuvant BOT+BAL in Resectable Colon Cancer2.11.2026 12:42:00 CET | Press release
In pMMR/MSS colon cancer, neoadjuvant BOT+BAL met the trial’s primary endpoint with a 36% major pathologic response rate, including 29% pathologic complete response, within an overall 71% pathologic response rate after one BOT dose and two BAL dosesNo patients treated with BOT+BAL had their cancer return, with median follow-up of 19.2 months in MSS disease and 16.7 months in MSI-H disease; 12-month event-free survival was 100% in both combination cohorts.Independent, multicenter UNICORN findings reinforce the NEST peer-reviewed neoadjuvant evidence supporting Agenus’ planned Phase 3 ROBBIN trial in curative-intent MSS/pMMR colon cancer Agenus Inc. (Nasdaq: AGEN), a leader in immuno-oncology innovation, today announced the peer-reviewed publication of results from the investigator-sponsored, multicenter Phase 2 UNICORN trial evaluating short-course preoperative, or neoadjuvant, botensilimab (BOT), Agenus’ multifunctional, Fc-enhanced anti-CTLA-4 antibody, alone or in combination with ba
New Joint Survey from Compass Pathways and the Depression and Bipolar Support Alliance Reveals the Lived Burden of Treatment-Resistant Depression on Patients and Caregivers2.11.2026 12:30:00 CET | Press release
New survey findings reveal the extent of unmet need for people living with treatment-resistant depression (TRD) and its impact on families, relationships and the ability to participate fully in everyday life Compass Pathways plc (Nasdaq: CMPS), a biotechnology company dedicated to unlocking urgently needed new treatment options in mental health care, in partnership with the Depression and Bipolar Support Alliance (DBSA), today released a new report summarizing findings from a national survey of people living with TRD (n=261) and caregivers (n=73) on the self-reported realities of living with a condition that can profoundly affect daily life, revealing the burden of prolonged depressive episodes without meaningful relief. The survey findings demonstrate the impact of TRD across various aspects of everyday life, with many patients reporting years spent cycling through treatments without significant improvement while the condition takes a toll on their hope, identity, relationships and ab
Qorium Becomes Reyva as Cultivated Leather Company Moves Towards Commercial Scale2.11.2026 11:00:00 CET | Press release
New identity signals the company’s evolution into a standalone material brand for luxury and automotive markets Reyva develops real leather by cultivating bovine collagen from a small sample of animal cells. The new brand brings together advanced biotechnology, leather expertise and a clearer luxury proposition. The company’s team, technology, partnerships and commercial ambition continue under the new name. Qorium, the company that develops cultivated real leather, today announces that it is becoming Reyva. The new name and identity mark its next stage: moving from a pioneering technology business towards a global material brand built for the exacting standards of the luxury leather sector. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20261102661351/en/ Reyva creates beautiful, high-performing real leather. By cultivating leather in uniform sheets, we can move beyond the natural limits of traditional hides, with greater con
Ant International Research Highlights How Readable AI Memories Can Unlock More Personalised, Privacy-conscious Consumer Experiences2.11.2026 09:52:00 CET | Press release
Human sales and customer representatives have institutional memories to serve clients: their preferences and choices. How can we build a memory mechanism for AI services to create similarly personalised experiences? Ant International’s research on this subject recently received the Senior Area Chair (SAC) Highlight Award from the Best Paper Committee at EMNLP 2026, a leading global AI conference. Why do we need “readable AI memory”? In this paper titled 'Text as a universal interface for transferable personalisation', we look into one fact: until now, AI memory of a user has usually been generated and stored as dense numerical code only the original system can interpret. Two long-standing problems with that: First, today's user profiles are "black boxes" — opaque code locked inside a single app, so activity in one service teaches nothing to another, and every product has to re-learn you from scratch. Second, profiles are welded to the model that created them, so they don't transfer whe
In our pressroom you can read all our latest releases, find our press contacts, images, documents and other relevant information about us.
Visit our pressroom