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Insights 6 min readMarch 18, 2026

Why Saudi Arabia is becoming the world's new event stage

L
Layla Al-Harbi
The Journal

From LEAP to the Future Investment Initiative, the Kingdom is rewriting what a flagship summit looks like.

In just a few years, Saudi Arabia has shifted from hosting occasional regional expos to producing some of the most ambitious global gatherings on the calendar. LEAP in Riyadh now rivals CES and Web Summit in scale, while the Future Investment Initiative has become the Davos of the Gulf. Meanwhile, the Red Sea Film Festival in Jeddah and the AlUla Moments program are re-positioning the Kingdom as a cultural powerhouse. Vision 2030 committed to a national transformation, and the events calendar is one of its most visible outputs — a tangible signal that the doors of the Kingdom are open to the world.

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