MDLBEAST’s Monumental 2025: A Mid-Year Reflection and Forward Look
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Over six months into 2025 and now celebrating six glorious years, MDLBEAST’s calendar of spectacular events delivered a blueprint of cultural transformation. From heritage sites turned festival grounds to bold new talent initiatives, the region’s leading music and entertainment powerhouse continues to rewrite what’s possible in the Middle East. But this year feels different. The momentum isn’t just steady—it’s accelerating. Every stage, every speaker, and every strategic partnership has contributed to a louder, bolder voice coming from Saudi Arabia’s creative class.
This isn’t just about turning up the volume. It’s about establishing music as a pillar of identity, expression, and economy. As MDLBEAST scales new heights, the conversation has shifted from what’s next to what’s lasting. With festivals like Balad Beast and A Thousand and One reimagining heritage spaces, and programs like Generation Beasts reshaping youth pathways, 2025 has become the year of deep-rooted impact.
EDMNOMAD spoke exclusively with MDLBEAST’s changemakers halfway through that journey—tracing the path from January’s roaring start in Jeddah to summer’s global headliners in Riyadh and Jeddah, and ending with what’s yet to come for 2025.
Balad Beast 2025: Lighting Up MDLBEAST’s Legacy
Balad Beast returned this January with a louder, smarter, and more emotionally resonant third edition, welcoming 30,000 partygoers to historic Jeddah. The UNESCO World Heritage Site was transformed into a high-concept, four-stage playground that pulsed with artistic ambition and cultural reverence. This wasn’t a music festival set in a historic district—Balad Beast was a cultural intervention powered by sound.
Across two immersive nights, over 70 artists performed at four distinct stages: Bab, Omda, Souq, and Roshan. Each stage offered more than music—it delivered a distinct narrative. 21 Savage, Michael Kiwanuka, and Gunna electrified the opening night, while Wiz Khalifa and Metro Boomin closed out the second with high-octane sets. Regional heavyweights like Dish Dash, Korolova, and Vinyl Mode anchored the lineup, reinforcing the local-global fusion that defines Balad Beast.
The 2025 edition stands out with its refined visual identity, according to MDLBEAST’s CCO Baloo. He shares, “Balad Beast is almost a light festival surrounded by music… You want to come early and leave late.” This year’s site-wide projection mapping turned ancient walls into living art, amplifying the emotional texture of the music itself. The architectural soul of Al Balad wasn’t hidden—it was highlighted, reframed, and illuminated.
In a city known for commerce and tradition, Balad Beast declared a different kind of legacy—one made from frequency, vision, and shared experience.
XP Initiatives and MDLBEAST Foundation: Infrastructure for the Future
This year, XP expanded Hearful, its flagship hearing-health campaign, and launched XCHANGE in Manama, Doha, and soon Marrakesh. Meanwhile, Sound Futures 2025 continues to pair music-tech startups with industry investors, reflecting MDLBEAST’s focus on scaling culture and commerce. From XPERFORM’s vocal talent search to the Artist Management Bootcamp, each program meets a unique industry gap.
2025 also marked the launch of MDLBEAST’s Nite Ventures. A nightlife incubator for event promoters, entrepreneurs, and venue operators seeking to redefine Riyadh’s after-dark landscape. It supports local concepts through funding, mentorship, and connection, creating a sustainable nightlife economy from the ground up.
As Nada Alhelabi, General Manager of the MDLBEAST Foundation, explained: “Through these initiatives, MDLBEAST Foundation is not only shaping the future of music in Saudi Arabia and the region but also contributing to the development of a global music industry that is innovative, inclusive, and resilient. We extend our gratitude to our community and partners who share our mission to elevate the music industry in the region. As we embark on our 2025 journey, we invite new partners to join us in scaling and fortifying the music ecosystem through XP initiatives.”
The message is clear—MDLBEAST is not just programming music; it’s engineering the infrastructure behind it.
Generation Beasts: Paving Pathways for Young Saudis
MDLBEAST’s 2025 vision took a direct step toward empowering local talent with the launch of Generation Beasts. A two-track program that gives Saudi youth a pathway into the entertainment industry. Through both the Co-Op Internship and the Tamheer Graduate Program, students and recent grads now have structured access to one of the Saudi’s most creative companies.
The Co-Op Internship invites Saudi university students to join MDLBEAST for a three-month immersive experience, working on real-time projects across music, events, and media. It’s direct involvement in strategy, execution, and innovation. Those who complete the internship may then enter Tamheer, a post-graduate training initiative backed by the Human Resources Development Fund (HRDF). MDLBEAST currently plans to onboard 8 to 10 Tamheer graduates per year, with expansion possible as the company grows. Importantly, Tamheer also welcomes fresh graduates from outside the internship pipeline, widening access and diversity.
Looking at 2025, Louise Stubbs, MDLBEAST’s People & Culture Advisor, explains: “At MDLBEAST, we believe in nurturing homegrown talent and providing young Saudis with the right tools and experiences to thrive in the entertainment industry. With Generation Beasts, we’re not only giving students and graduates a chance to learn from industry professionals, but also ensuring they become key players in shaping the future of Saudi Arabia’s creative economy.”
This is talent development with intent. Generation Beasts isn’t simply preparing employees—it’s training cultural architects, capable of carrying the MDLBEAST vision forward for generations to come.
Keinemusik in AlUla: Global Sounds, Ancient Grounds
April brought one of the year’s most poetic contrasts as Keinemusik debuted their Kloud series in the surreal landscape of AlUla. The performance wasn’t simply a party—it was a moment of cultural alignment between Berlin’s underground and Saudi Arabia’s ancient soul.
Set within a UNESCO World Heritage site, the one-night experience invited fans from around the world to witness what happens when music meets monumental history. MDLBEAST’s expertise highlighted a growing trend in 2025: intimate shows with global gravity in deeply symbolic Saudi locations. Minimalist and percussive, Keinemusik’s set echoed through canyons older than recorded sound. But rather than overpower the setting, the music settled into it. It was the kind of sonic humility that elevated both the space and the experience.
As Rayan AlRasheed, Director of Operations & Artist Booking at MDLBEAST, put it: “We’re incredibly proud of the success of this event. To bring Keinemusik to a place as unique and historic as AlUla is a testament to our mission of blending global entertainment with the rich cultural heritage of the region. The energy here was truly special, and we’re excited to continue our work in making Saudi Arabia a hub for groundbreaking cultural experiences.”
The event was small in size, but massive in impact. It made clear that Saudi’s vision for music tourism isn’t just about scale—it’s about location, intimacy, and resonance.
Saudi Arabian Grand Prix: Where Speed Meets Sound
From April 18 to 20, the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix returned to Jeddah. High-impact musical programming was evident in MDLBEAST’s 2025 involvement at Formula 1. Each year, the event becomes less about racing alone—and more about cultural convergence.
This year’s lineup was among the most diverse to date. Jennifer Lopez, Usher, Peggy Gou, PARTYNEXTDOOR, Major Lazer Soundsystem, and TUL8TE performed alongside regional favorites Hamid El Shaeri, Marwan Pablo, and Moustafa Amar. The musical programming didn’t compete with the race—it complemented its intensity. This convergence elevated both experiences. As spectators cheered laps, beats pulsed nearby. The city itself became a multi-sensory grid where adrenaline met emotion.
As Ramadan Alharatani, CEO of MDLBEAST, explained: “This is what cultural tourism through entertainment looks like. The music doesn’t just support the race weekend—it transforms it.”
That transformation was evident in the production quality. Large-scale staging, precise lighting, and immersive visuals delivered a concert-level experience inside a motorsport infrastructure. For international visitors, it signaled that Jeddah is building a new kind of entertainment capital. By integrating live music into one of Saudi’s most prominent sports weekends, MDLBEAST isn’t just heightening the party—it’s rewriting how music functions in a national context. At the Grand Prix, performance becomes memory—a permanent souvenir louder than the engines.
A Thousand and One: New Festival, Old Soul
The Saudi desert whispered change as 1001 Festival opened under the stars of Riyadh on April 24 and 25. Unlike the grandeur of Soundstorm, this was quieter, smaller, and far more personal. There were no headlining rappers or genre clashes. This wasn’t built to attract everyone—it was designed to call the right ones. A declaration, not a mimicry. A festival rooted in Saudi identity, spoken fluently in sound and vision. MDLBEAST’s vision wasn’t just producing a new festival in 2025—they were revealing a future. 1001 Festival felt less like spectacle, more like revelation. Saudis weren’t guests here. They were the pulse.
CEO Ramadan Alharatani described the intent: “With 1001, we set out to create a new music experience that felt original to us. A world that pulls from our heritage but speaks to a global audience. Seeing so many people respond to that idea, and truly immerse in the festival for two amazing nights, is the kind of reward you can’t plan for; it just happens when it’s real.”
Crowds came from Jeddah, Dammam, Kuwait, and beyond. The gender balance was striking. Women arrived freely, unbothered, and fully at ease. HER zones, Respect Programs, and Ramadan’s initiative to offer complimentary tickets to women made an undeniable impact. “We need to ensure young Saudi women are not afraid to come to our shows,” Michael Jobson, Executive Director of Events at MDLBEAST, added.
1001 Festival proved that Saudi’s next chapter in music is louder and deeper. Boutique in size. Monumental in meaning. At 1001, the night didn’t echo the West—it wrote its own Saudi story.
XCHANGE Doha: MDLBEAST’s Harnesses The Power of Regional Connection in 2025
On May 1st, the MDLBEAST Foundation, in collaboration with XP Music Futures and One Day At A Time (ODAAT), brought the XCHANGE series to Doha. It was a carefully curated day of panel talks, music showcases, and cultural dialogues, centered around one goal: connecting Doha’s emerging scene to the larger MENA ecosystem.
More than a pop-up, XCHANGE Doha signaled a wider movement—a move toward intercity collaboration and cross-border creative development. Industry leaders, policymakers, and grassroots artists gathered under one roof to ask big questions and build local answers. It wasn’t about copying Riyadh’s model or replicating Jeddah’s momentum—it was about catalyzing Doha’s own identity through music.
The panels ranged from scene-building challenges to funding pathways, offering insight into both the bottlenecks and breakthroughs facing Qatar’s music community. In the evening, live showcases transformed those conversations into sonic expressions. It was a seamless bridge between theory and practice, reflection and rhythm. MDLBEAST’s ideology for XCHANGE centeres on building relationships in 2025 and beyond. The format strips away hype and replaces it with utility. Artists meet programmers. Promoters meet sponsors. Ideas meet infrastructure.
As the XP conference in Riyadh draws nearer, these satellite events play a critical role in mapping a regional network. They don’t just foreshadow what’s coming—they seed it. In doing so, they also reflect MDLBEAST’s broader 2025 strategy: don’t centralize creativity—distribute it. Doha’s XCHANGE felt intimate, but its ripple effect is already expanding. It reminded everyone that the region’s future won’t emerge from a single city, but from an interconnected constellation of creative communities.
Guns N’ Roses in Riyadh: A Rock Statement for a Pop-Focused Market
When Guns N’ Roses stepped onto the stage at Mohammed Abdo Arena on May 23, it wasn’t just another concert—it was a cultural reckoning. For the first time ever, the legendary rock band performed in Riyadh, filling Boulevard Riyadh City with 15,000 roaring fans and decades of global rock energy. While Saudi Arabia’s music scene has surged forward with EDM, hip-hop, and pop superstars, this show proved there’s space for guitars, grit, and rock history, too.
The setlist carried timeless anthems like “November Rain” and “Welcome to the Jungle,” echoing across the capital with iconic force. From the moment Slash’s guitar rang out, it became clear: this wasn’t a legacy act on autopilot. It was a world-class production delivered with intensity, precision, and undeniable connection. MDLBEAST’s technical mastery elevated the performance into a full-spectrum sensory experience, blending rich sound design with immersive visuals to match the weight of rock royalty.
“Hosting Guns N’ Roses in Riyadh for the first time is a major moment—not just for MDLBEAST, but for the growth of live music in Saudi Arabia,” said Rayan Alrasheed, Director of Artist Booking & Stakeholder at MDLBEAST. “This show reflects the scale of what’s possible here. Our role goes beyond booking talent—we’re focused on building experiences that resonate, and last night proved just how far we have come and set the tone for what’s to come next.”
It wasn’t just a one-night thrill. It was a bold redefinition of Saudi Arabia’s musical identity—proof that rock belongs here, too.
XPERFORM 2025: MDLBEAST’s Answer To Elevating MENA’s Vocal Talent
In late June, MDLBEAST’s XPERFORM reopened its doors for 2025, reaffirming its role as the region’s premier vocal talent search. With auditions in Riyadh on June 28–29, the program sets out once again to discover, develop, and elevate singers across the MENA region.
But XPERFORM is more than a competition—it’s an ecosystem gateway. Finalists don’t just perform for applause—they access mentors, exposure, and potential record deals. The 2025 jury includes Emirati icon Shamma Hamdan, A&R exec Rawan Alfassi, viral hitmaker Dafencii, and new judge Aziz Maraka, one of Jordan’s most respected singer-songwriters.
Previous editions launched the careers of artists like Asayel and Djmubarak, whose platforms grew dramatically post-show. This year’s applicants arrive with that roadmap already in mind. They aren’t auditioning blindly—they’re aiming strategically. What sets XPERFORM apart is its integration with XP Music Futures, where the grand finale doubles as a regional industry showcase. By aligning talent search with MDLBEAST’s XP ecosystem this ensures winners don’t fade after the spotlight—they evolve within it in 2025 and for years to come.
For MDLBEAST, the show serves as a barometer. What does the region sound like today? What stories are emerging from its young artists? XPERFORM isn’t about creating stars. It’s about understanding culture—and amplifying it in its rawest, most honest form. With every note sung and every story shared, the 2025 edition is shaping up to be a defining chorus in Saudi Arabia’s music future.
ONYX and AFT_r 2025: MDLBEAST’s Summer Takes Center Stage
This summer, MDLBEAST is doubling down on live performances with two parallel event series: ONYX in Jeddah and AFT_r in Riyadh. Running across four weekends from July 17 to August 8, the summer slate offers more than just entertainment—it’s a nationwide celebration of music culture during the hottest months of the year.
ONYX Arena in Jeddah is once again the anchor. With its 12,000+ capacity, it blends stadium-scale energy with a club-like intimacy. This year’s lineup is staggering: Quavo, Don Diablo, Metro Boomin, Meduza, R3HAB, Central Cee, and the Black Eyed Peas, performing alongside regional powerhouses like DAFENCII, Saud & Jeed, and Sharkk. Each weekend layers global impact with local relevance.
Meanwhile in Riyadh, AFT_r unfolds at anb Arena, adjacent to the Esports World Cup, creating a hybrid zone where gaming meets nightlife. The concept feels intuitive in 2025—why silo audiences when their interests already overlap? Nileboi, Shaolin, and Bayou join a similar lineup of international heavyweights, curating a high-energy festival within an esports convention.
“As we continue to push the boundaries of entertainment in the region, this summer’s AFT_r and ONYX shows demonstrate our commitment to building cultural bridges, elevating local talent, and hosting world-class experiences across Saudi Arabia,” said Ramadan Alharatani, MDLBEAST’s CEO. It’s more than rhetoric. The scale, planning, and design of both ONYX and AFT_r reveal a company moving beyond festival formulas, shaping a seasonal rhythm that keeps audiences engaged year-round. In a country where summer was once considered an off-season, MDLBEAST has flipped that narrative. Now, July and August pulse with some of the most exciting nights on the entertainment calendar—proof that when programming meets intention, even the heat becomes a stage.
MDLBEAST Records: Elevating Regional Voices
Parallel to the live events, MDLBEAST Records is steadily defining the sonic fingerprint of the region. While the global EDM scene often dominates headlines, the label has remained committed to developing homegrown talent and exporting new sounds.
Coming up in the second half of 2025, four key artists will release new music via the label: Asayel, Zeyne, Tiara, and Yazeed Fahad. Each artist reflects a different cultural current. Asayel continues to lead Saudi hip-hop with lyrical confidence and crossover appeal. Zeyne, brings rich vocal emotion and classical sensibilities into modern pop. Tiara, blends Arabic phrasing with R&B tones, creating a sound both local and cosmopolitan. Meanwhile, Yazeed Fahad expands the indie palette of Saudi Arabia, channeling singer-songwriter intimacy through regional textures.
These releases represent more than music drops—they are chapters in a larger narrative. MDLBEAST Records isn’t flooding the market with singles. It’s carefully curating artists who expand genre boundaries, redefine language use in music, and challenge what regional identity sounds like in the global context. It’s also a bet on audience sophistication. The label assumes that listeners are ready—if not hungry—for sounds that feel both familiar and novel. By prioritizing artist development in 2025 over quick hits, the label aligns with MDLBEAST’s longer strategy: longevity over virality.
The releases may be rolling out one at a time, but together they form a collective voice—one that speaks to the emerging maturity of the region’s musical DNA.
Looking Ahead: XP Futures, XCHANGE Marrakesh, and Soundstorm 2025
The second half of the year holds three major touchpoints for MDLBEAST: XCHANGE Marrakesh, XP Music Futures, and the return of the iconic Soundstorm Festival. Each event builds on the groundwork laid in the first half—only now, the stakes are even higher.
First, XCHANGE Marrakesh, set for late September, will bring the XP ethos to a new city. Marrakesh offers a fresh intersection of Arab, Berber, and European influences, and MDLBEAST’s 2025 arrival signals its commitment to MENA-wide inclusion. These aren’t one-size-fits-all pop-ups. They’re adaptive conversations shaped by local voices.
Then in December, XP Music Futures returns to Riyadh, running from December 5–7. With its four pillars—Talent, Scene, Impact, and Innovation—XP is more than a conference. It’s the policy lab, networking engine, and future-casting platform of the regional industry. Expect expanded programming, global speakers, and more integration with artist development pathways like XPERFORM and Sound Futures.
Finally, Soundstorm Festival, from December 11–13, marks the cultural climax. Known for its record-breaking productions and massive crowds, Soundstorm is where MDLBEAST first defined its identity—and each year since has pushed that boundary. While the 2025 lineup remains under wraps, past editions featured the likes of Eminem, Muse, and Linkin Park. Fans now expect surprise moments, genre mashups, and the largest production builds in the region.
What makes this closing trio powerful is not just their scale—it’s their sequencing. Marrakesh connects the region. XP shapes the conversation. Soundstorm delivers the exclamation mark.
Saudi Arabia’s Cultural Evolution Isn’t Coming—It’s Here
Six months into 2025, MDLBEAST has done more than produce events—it has constructed ecosystems, elevated voices, and redrawn cultural geographies. From the bustling stages of Balad Beast to the quiet mentorship of Generation Beasts, from the rocks of AlUla to the esports arenas of Riyadh, every move reflects a strategic shift from spectacle to substance.
This isn’t a flurry of one-off wins. It’s a cultural infrastructure project, wrapped in sound and story. The company’s expansion is no longer about being bigger—it’s about being smarter, deeper, and more interconnected. Each new program, artist release, and regional activation builds toward a vision where music becomes a core economic and identity driver for Saudi Arabia.
But most importantly, MDLBEAST is changing perception. It’s showing the world—and its own people—that the Middle East isn’t waiting to be discovered. It’s already on the main stage. And as the second half of 2025 approaches, that stage is only getting brighter.
Visit MDLBEAST’s official website for updates on their 2025 initiatives and more.
