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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
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Michael Hann

What’s behind Saudi Arabia’s answer to Glastonbury? The power of popwashing

An image from the MDL Beast Soundstorm festival in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, December 2019
An image from the MDL Beast Soundstorm festival in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, December 2019. Photograph: MD Beast/Getty Images

You might believe we’re fresh from the biggest music festival in the world, what with more than 200,000 people having assembled in some fields in Somerset. We’re not.

Actually, Glastonbury is pretty much a minnow compared with the biggest music festival in the world. Soundstorm, held each December, attracts more than triple the Glastonbury crowd, but you don’t hear the headliners wanging on about what a life-changing experience it was. You don’t hear them mention it at all, to be honest. I only heard of it earlier this year, when the CEO of a big production company talked about his firm’s work on the event. The reason you don’t hear about it is that Soundstorm is held in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

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