Soundstorm was born from a singular, audacious idea: that Saudi Arabia's underground music scene, once confined to bedroom DJ sets and private gatherings, had the potential to inspire a global cultural movement. In 2019, MDLBEAST turned that belief into reality, launching what has since grown into the Middle East's loudest and largest music festival.
The idea driving Soundstorm goes beyond entertainment. It is a proof of concept, that world-class live experiences can be built in the heart of Riyadh, that local and regional talent can share the same stage as global superstars, and that a generation of Saudi youth who always had a voice can now be heard on the world's biggest platforms.
The goals were clear and ambitious. First, to establish Saudi Arabia as a premier destination for global music tourism, reversing a trend where 72% of local fans previously traveled abroad for such experiences. Second, to create meaningful economic impact, generating thousands of jobs and engaging hundreds of local vendors. Third, to amplify Saudi and regional artists, giving them a world-class platform alongside international headliners. Fourth, to innovate relentlessly in production and experience design, not as spectacle alone, but as a driver of digital storytelling and global media amplification, evidenced by Guinness World Records for the tallest temporary stage and largest LED display in festival history.
Each year, Soundstorm raises its own bar, scaling to 250+ artists across 14 stages in 2025 with one consistent goal: to make Saudi Arabia not just a participant in global music culture, but one of its defining forces.
Bringing Soundstorm to life each year is an exercise in building a city from scratch, then tearing it down and rebuilding it better. The execution begins months in advance, with every department working in parallel: programming teams curating lineups across genres and geographies, production crews designing stage infrastructure, operations mapping crowd flow, and safety teams designing site-wide protocols. What makes Soundstorm unique is that none of this happens in silos. The innovation is embedded in how all these functions intersect; audience data informs site design, booking strategy informs stage architecture, and social amplification informs visual production.
The Plan: Build a City, Not Just a Festival
In 2025, the strategic breakthrough was rethinking the site itself. Rather than a collection of stages, the team designed a navigable City of Beats, four districts (East, West, North, South), each with a distinct musical identity, connected by a central Downtown hub serving as the festival's beating heart. 14 stages, each genre-coded and purpose-built, replaced the previous format. This required not only architectural reimagination but a complete rethinking of crowd movement, signage, and attendee journey from the moment guests arrived. The model was informed directly by behavioral heat-mapping and multi-year attendee feedback, solving navigation friction while increasing cross-genre discovery and dwell time across the site.
The redesign transformed Soundstorm from a performance destination into a participatory environment.
Key Features & Execution
The scale of production was staggering. Soundstorm West alone used 1,104 shipping containers to construct four stages with a combined capacity of 16,300. The Big Beast mainstage welcomed 65,000 people per night. A drone show featuring 1,600 drones lit up the Riyadh sky. Site-wide screens totaled 2,200 square meters and the overall pixel count reached 91,721,580.
But beyond scale, production functioned as infrastructure for digital storytelling. High-contrast stage architecture, synchronized drone choreography, and immersive LED environments were designed to generate cinematic moments.
Alongside technical spectacle, MDLBEAST built infrastructure for inclusion. The HER Program expanded significantly, with 8 female-only viewing zones, 5 new HER Experience spaces, over 2,300 meters of dedicated HER Path wayfinding, ladies-only entry lanes, and a new double-decker viewing platform exclusive to women, with all accessible regardless of ticket tier. Eight Respect Hubs operated across the site alongside medical facilities to ensure safety and dignity for every attendee. Over 2,000 trained security personnel and 300 surveillance cameras supported a festival-wide safety infrastructure built with internationally recognized standards.
Challenges Overcome
Executing a festival of this scale in a market still developing its live events infrastructure presents challenges that established festival markets don’t face. Logistics, supply chains, local workforce training, and international artist coordination all required building systems that previously did not exist at this scale.
The 2025 district transformation was itself a response to operational and audience learning accumulated over five years, as each edition has been an iteration. Introducing genre-specific districts in 2025 addressed years of feedback about navigation and discovery within a sprawling site, and turning every learning into structural improvement.
What Makes It Unique
What sets Soundstorm apart isn’t any single element, it’s the deliberate fusion of world-class production with cultural intentionality. The 6AG stage, designed with an immersive Arabic-wedding aesthetic, gave Saudi and regional artists a 6,000-capacity home within the same festival hosting global headliners like Cardi B and Calvin Harris. Rather than separating local and international talent, Soundstorm places them on equal footing within one shared cultural space. It doesn’t ask Saudi culture to adapt to global entertainment; it positions both as co-authors of the same stage.
Soundstorm's success is measured not just in attendance, but in cultural and economic transformation. Since its 2019 launch, the festival has drawn over 450,000 attendees and generated measurable impact across every objective we set.
Economic Impact: MDLBEAST created 1,400 full-time jobs and over 14,000 part-time roles, while engaging more than 540 vendors; a 119% increase year-over-year. Artist signings exceeded 125, marking 25% growth. These figures reflect not only growth, but ecosystem development.
Cultural Shift: 72% of MDLBEAST fans now prefer attending events within Saudi Arabia rather than traveling abroad. Soundstorm has transitioned the Kingdom from consumer market to cultural destination.
Global Cultural Dialogue & Community Participation: An example of how Soundstorm 2025 was an essential part of the community engagment not only in Saudi Arabia but also globally is Cardi B’s appearance. It became more than a headline performance; it became a participatory cultural moment that extended far beyond the stage.
Her interaction with Saudi fans, her culturally respectful styling choices, and her direct engagement through social platforms sparked global conversation. Search queries such as “Cardi B hijab” and Arabic transliterations trended internationally, reflecting not just curiosity, but cultural exchange.
According to a media analysis report on social media community engagment:
Most critically for community engagement:
Above figures stresses that the artist became a co-amplifier of the Soundstorm community rather than only a performer.
Fans weren’t passive spectators. They created, shared, and reshaped the narrative in real time. Viral TikTok clips, backstage moments, and fan interactions extended the experience into digital spaces where audiences across 20+ countries participated in the conversation. The City of Beats was not only experienced by those on site; it was co-created online by a global audience.
