Saudi Gazette report

RIYADH — The Ministry of Culture is making preparations to organize the Jeddah Heritage Festival during the period from December 2 to 18 this year in the city of Jeddah.

The festival will be held as part of the Quality of Life Program, one of the programs to achieve the Kingdom’s Vision 2030. The festival is featuring the heritage, historical and cultural character of Jeddah city through the celebration of the cultural depth of the city and its inhabitants.

The cultural, social, and commercial ethos of the city throughout history will be showcased in the festival. The ministry is keen on celebrating the national heritage of Jeddah with a highlight on the historical and cultural elements that Jeddah experienced throughout the ages.

The Heritage Festival will showcase the most prominent historical and cultural features of Jeddah city ever since the pre-Islamic period until the present day. There will be a unique blending of ancient heritage with ambitious modern urbanism. This will provide the visitor with an enthralling historical and contemporary experience with modern and enjoyable technical molds.

The festival would receive its visitors in the popular market, which will be held in an open area in a historical heritage atmosphere, wearing traditional costumes. Artisan vendors will display a number of handicraft products such as pottery, and weaving old clothes, along with the participation of sellers of dates, grains, fish, and bread. There will also be sculptors, carpenters, and the like, with the provision of old and historical vehicles, shops, and tools through which the visitor can experience the atmosphere of the old popular markets.

After touring the traditional popular markets, the visitors will have a dazzling visual interactive experience in the Visual Arts Gallery, which will showcase films, photos, models, and ancient places with the latest technologies, by integrating them into an educational and informative template.

In the Museum, the visitors will enjoy the amazing experience of a virtual tour of historical places such as Nasseef House, as well as the Grand Mosque of Makkah and the Prophet’s Mosque in Madinah during the ancient period.

There is also another area in the festival, called the ‘Architecture and Design’ area that will simulate the buildings and streets of old Jeddah, including the types of ancient urban style of buildings, streets, windows, entrances, gathering centers, and cafes, interior designs of homes, in addition to displaying some features of construction methods.

In the ‘Fashion Through Ages’ area, local costumes, their historical sequence, and the most important changes that have affected them will be showcased, in addition to explaining the materials used in their manufacture by displaying them on models with a description of the history of the costume, its name, and some of its details.

There will be a theatrical show that tends to give glimpses into the changes happening between concepts and lifestyles of society, and some differences between the past and the present in a comic form. This will be staged in a neighborhood that would house all the main elements such as shops, cafes, and seating areas to represent the most important interactions of people and the most prominent concerns of their lives at that time.

The seating sessions at the ‘Cafe and restaurant between the past and present area, will have a combination of modern chairs and older ones where old traditional drinks such as almond coffee, sahlab, sobia and others, in addition to Saudi coffee, and local dishes with international touches will be served in an innovative way.

At the children’s games section, interactive and kinetic games, which prevailed in the past, would be combined with modern ones.

The visitor concludes his journey at the festival in the ‘Arts Square’ area, which will present ancient folk arts and dances in a live show by folk groups.