Riyadh Season with 14 nominations at New York Festivals Advertising Awards

Launched in 2019, Riyadh Season is one of the year’s biggest events in the region, attracting millions of visitors between October and March and encompassing winter and spring in the Saudi capital. (Supplied)
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Updated 04 June 2024
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Riyadh Season with 14 nominations at New York Festivals Advertising Awards

  • BigTime Creative Shop leads nominations in MENA region

LONDON: Riyadh Season has been nominated in 14 categories at this year’s New York Festivals Advertising Awards, its organizers said on Tuesday.

BigTime Creative Shop, the creative arm behind Riyadh Season, leads the nominations in the Middle East and North Africa region.

The organizers said: “This achievement enhances the status of Riyadh Season as one of the most important entertainment seasons globally, affirming the efforts made in developing creative content that meets international standards.”

The nominations include “Knockout Chaos,” “Day of Reckoning,” and “Ring of Fire,” which are competing in categories such as identity, films, animation, visual effects, production design, and promotion.

Launched in 2019, Riyadh Season is one of the year’s biggest events in the region, attracting millions of visitors between October and March and encompassing winter and spring in the Saudi capital.

It has featured world-class events such as WWE Crown Jewel 2023, Riyadh Season Tennis Cup, Italian and Spanish Supercups and the Soundstorm Festival.

Under the slogan “Big Time,” the boxing match between Tyson Fury and Francis Ngannou — which was held during Riyadh Season last October — won the Outstanding Promotional Announcement Award — for “Let’s Get Ready to Rumble” for the Battle of the Baddest — at the 45th edition of the Sports Emmy Awards, which honors the best work in sports media.


Saudi Arabia ‘ideal partner’ in shaping next wave of intelligent age, communication minister tells WEF

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Saudi Arabia ‘ideal partner’ in shaping next wave of intelligent age, communication minister tells WEF

  • Abdullah Al-Swaha said aim was to “help the world achieve the next $100 trillion by energizing the intelligence age”

DAVOS: Saudi Arabia has accelerated efforts in “energizing the intelligent age,” making the Kingdom the world’s ideal partner in shaping the next wave of the technological age, said the minister of communication and information technology.

Speaking during a panel discussion at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Abdullah Al-Swaha said the aim was to “help the world achieve the next $100 trillion by energizing the intelligence age.”

He said the Kingdom was expanding global partnerships for the benefit of humanity and highlighted both local and international achievements.

“We believe the more prosperous the Kingdom, the Middle East, is, the more prosperous the world is. And it is not a surprise that we fuel 50 percent of the digital economy in the kingdom or the region,” he told the audience. He added the Kingdom fueled three times the tech force of its neighbors and, as a result, 50 percent of venture capital funding.

Al-Swaha said Saudi Arabia was focused both on artificial intelligence acceleration and adoption. At home, he said, the Kingdom was doubling the use of agentic AI in the public and private sector to increase worker productivity tenfold. He also cited the world’s first fully robotic heart transplant, which was conducted in Saudi Arabia.

“If we double down on talent, technology, and build trust with partners, we can achieve success,” he said. “And we are following the same blueprint for the intelligence age.”

He said the Kingdom aimed to be a “testbed” for innovators and investors. Rapid technological adoption and investment have boosted Saudi Arabia’s non-oil economy, with non-oil activities accounting for 56 percent of GDP and surpassing $1.2 trillion in 2025, ahead of the Vision 2030 target.

In terms of adoption, Al-Swaha said the Kingdom had introduced the Arabic-language AI model, Allam, to be adopted across Adobe product series. It has also partnered with Qualcomm to bring the first hybrid AI laptop and endpoints to the world.

“These are true testimonies that the kingdom is not going local or regional; we are going global,” he said.