Famous young instagram stars including Nadine Leopold, Elsa Hosk and Lorena Rae have helped promote the MDL Beast music festival this year for the Saudi Royal Family. The influential young fashionistas have been tweeting themselves in the desert, and posting fantastic shots on the dunes and from within the festival.
The festival which saw thousands of young music fans gathering to see artists such as David Guetta, Afro Jack and Tiesto, and was hailed as a great success for the Kingdom’s Entertainment authority. Turki Al-Sheikh has had great success employing social media influencers to reinvent the Kingdom’s reputation as a forward-thinking tourist destination, who have been eager to embrace the Saudi Royal’s world renowned hospitality, although this has come at a significant price.
The Saudi Royals are driving forward with Vision 2030 in a bid to diversify the economy, with $2.7 billion set aside for entertainment, artists can often be paid up to six times their normal booking fees to travel to far-flung desert locations, and media personalities are paid seven-figure sums in promotional deals.
With this considerable budget behind him Turki Al-Sheikh has had a number of recent successes, including the boxing mega-fight between Anthony Joshua and Andy Ruiz Jr, which drew-in new audiences and helped proved that the Saudi Royals are becoming capable of hosting top flight global sports events.
