There has never been a better time to be living in the UAE. In the past five weeks alone, Dubai has hosted RedFestDXB, Dubai Jazz Festival and Dubai Classics, and welcomed headline shows from Drake, Ed Sheeran and Michael Bublé. Still to come are Paolo Nutini and Thirty Seconds to Mars (both April 10) and One Direction (April 4).
The capital, meanwhile, is exploding with the Abu Dhabi Festival (until April 2), and preparing to welcome Robbie Williams (April 26).
And it’s not just music. In Dubai, the past fortnight brought the Emirates Airline Festival of Literature, Gulf Photo Plus’s Photo Friday, Dubai International Boat Show and Taste of Dubai.
This weekend might be the most manic yet. I can’t wait for the visual overload of ArtDubai, Design Days and Sikka. Which, of course, clash with the four-day Franco Film Festival, running Wednesday to Saturday, and the first concerts in the main programme of Abu Dhabi Festival. Add to all this the Emirates Classic Car Festival (Thursday to Sunday), and a performance by one of the United Kingdom’s biggest comedians, Jack Dee (Thursday).
Upcoming highlights include Gitex Shopper (April 1 to 4), the Middle East Film and Comic Con 2015 (April 9 to 11), Fashion Forward (April 10 to13), and World Art Dubai (April 8 to 11).
Still to come are the ostentatious social happenings of the Dubai World Cup (March 28) and the Beach Polo Cup (April 10 to 11).
It truly is an incredible run – a firm backhander in the face of anyone who moans that there “isn’t anything to do in the UAE”. And yet, I do have one tiny request. Couldn’t these events be spread out, just a little?
Honestly, I’m exhausted. Every year, around this time, there’s a tiny part of me that actually starts to look forward to summer. There’s not a single event listed above that I wouldn’t want to go to. And the only reason I won’t make them all (quite) is because it would be physically impossible. Yet I know that by the time June rolls around I’ll be breaking out the TV-show box sets.
Yet so much of what makes living here special are the events created for UAE residents, by UAE residents. Besides, if there’s one thing this country does an exemplary job of, it is air-conditioning.
Speaking to event organisers brings up a cyclical argument: in summer, there’s nothing to do, so people leave in droves – not the best time to stage an event, they say. But surely if there were things to do, we wouldn’t be so quick to leave in the first place?
Fanciful, perhaps. In the meantime, does anyone want to play swap-a-box-set?
rgarratt@thenational.ae
