Riyadh: The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) is preparing to host the world’s largest camel festival—King Abdulaziz camel festival is scheduled to kick off on December 1, 2021, the Saudi Press Agency (SPA) reported.
Bringing together camel owners from the Kingdom, other Gulf countries, the USA, Russia, and France have joined in the festivities. The sixth edition of the festival is starting on December 1, 2021, and will be ending by January 12, 2022.
Owners of around 33,000 camels are expected to participate in the event set up on an area of 32 square kilometres north of the Saudi capital Riyadh.
On Saturday, November 6, 2021, the official spokesman for the camel club in Saudi Arabia, Muhammad Al-Harbi revealed that women will participate for the first time in this year’s camel festival.
It has already started receiving applications for participation in the festival, in preparation for the process of including 19 categories for all the six basic colours in camels within the competitions, with a total of SR250,000 (Rs 49,44,806) cash prizes.
The festival management also announced the opening of registration via the competition link on its website and the last date for the registration is November 16, 2021.
The festival, which covers an area of 32 square kilometres and is located about 100 kilometres northeast of Riyadh, will also include various leisure and cultural activities to present it as a global carnival offering approximately 5,000 jobs and as a destination for tourists from all over the world with more than 100,000 visits daily.
Camels are popular animals that are closely related to the heritage of Saudi Arabia. This animal has long been called the “ship of the desert”, being the lifeline of the inhabitants of the desert.