RIYADH: The third annual Athar Festival began the first of its two days in Riyadh on Tuesday at the Diriyah Biennale Foundation’s headquarters in the Jax District.
The festival’s chairman Ian Fairservice spoke to Arab News, which is the event’s media partner, to discuss the improvements over previous years, the significance of its workshop and panel lineup, and what people can get out of visiting.
Fairservice said: “We’re occupying three times the area that we previously occupied, and we have 46 activations, and five different stages, from the relatively small to enormous.
“We have just under 3,000 delegates, and we have a very, very busy program with over 200 speakers providing 100 hours of content.
“This is similar to the size that Dubai Lynx achieved in about (18) years. We've achieved this here in the Kingdom in just the third year.”
The main exhibition hall is filled with big-time industry players such as Snapchat, Pinterest and HungerStation, along with workshop areas and multiple main stages.
The full-day program covers everything from shaping the future of creativity to the logistics of expanding businesses.
Fairservice added: “If people are going to give up two days, we want to make sure that we give them a lot of options.”
Through the Athar app, visitors can personalize their visit through scheduling tools and search for specific speakers and company events.
Fairservice said: “We hope that people will use those tools … I’ve seen one example already: some companies have produced a program for their colleagues saying ‘this is what we recommend. This is your recommended schedule’.”
The festival’s session lineup was curated through an open call. Speakers sent in their propositions, from which a lot of insight and information was drawn from the Athar team.
Fairservice said: “Now, the most topical subject that people want to talk about is going to be related to AI, gaming, especially gaming here in the Kingdom, because it’s probably one of the fastest, if not the fastest-growing pastimes, which is all down to the fact that the demographic is so young and so tech savvy.”
As Saudi Arabia invests heavily in the gaming sector, the Saudi Gamer Arena at the festival is a hub for the future of the industry.
“We’ve got to be looking all the time at future technologies whilst also respecting the other silos because there are so many different silos in our communication world today,” Fairservice said.
Youth participation is a prominent topic of discussion. With more than 70 percent of the Saudi population being under the age of 40, brands are increasingly investing in future creatives.
This can be seen at Athar as students and young people fill the stages and exhibition hall.
Publicis Groupe MENA’s Chief Innovation and Growth Officer Jennifer Fischer spoke at a session titled “Vibe Check to Brand Check: What Saudi Youth Want,” while interactive sessions like “Intergenerational Gaming: Me, My Father, and I” highlight how gaming is becoming a bridge across generations and a family activity.
But with the fast-changing pace in the creative industry, one may wonder where the older generations fit in.
Fairservice said: “I have great experience of being part of the older generation, and it’s just as important for me to be keeping up to date as it is for Gen Z.
“I don’t look at age as a factor, really. If you are in the industry, then you’re in the industry. It really doesn’t matter whether you’re a male or a female, whether you’re a Saudi, or an American, or an Indian national — and it doesn’t matter whether you’re 25 or 65 at the end of the day.
“I think everybody wants to learn and experience what’s new and upcoming in our industry.”
Athar is primarily built as a networking space, and as vice chairman of the event Mohamed Al-Ayed said, it is a place for “human connection,” one of the most important elements of the festival.
Fairservice said: “Somebody asked me the other day the strangest question. They asked, with the advent of AI, if exhibitions and conferences were going to be necessary in future. I thought that was so sad; what a terrible question to ask.
“Just because you’ve got AI and you’ve got information at your fingertips, which is sometimes very accurate and sometimes very questionable, it doesn’t mean that you can do away with this atmosphere that we’ve got here.
“People meeting people, networking, and listening, having meals, panels — it’s exciting. It’s a lot more exciting than staring at a screen.”
