SHARJAH // The skies were illuminated on Thursday night as the fourth annual Sharjah Light Festival got under way.
The nine-day festival, one of the emirate’s most popular tourist attractions, began with a light show centred on the newly constructed Sharjah Municipality headquarters buildings.
This year there will be several new shows added to the calendar with artists and technology coming together to narrate the story of Sharjah's heritage and culture at 12 different locations, said the chairman of Sharjah Commerce and Tourism Development Authority, Mohammed Ali Al Noman, earlier this week.
"For nine glorious days the emirate of Sharjah will once again wear a new robe of exquisite beauty decorated with the best of oriental art and colours, celebrating Sharjah's Islamic civilisation and legacy of our ancestors," he said.
Mr Al Noman said the Sharjah Light Festival, the first event of its kind in the Middle East, complements and enhances the emirate’s tourism profile, illuminating its aesthetic beauty, literature, art and culture and helping the tourism sector to attract tens of thousands of tourists from across the region and the world. The opening session was blessed by the Ruler of Sharjah, Dr Sheikh Sultan bin Mohammed Al Qasimi.
This year’s highlights include a spectacular hour-long parade that will start at Flag Island before heading to the central souq. It will be followed by another hour of entertainment with popular cartoon and fictional characters.
This year three new sites have been added to the festival’s celebrations. They include the Dr Sheikh Sultan Al Qasimi Centre for Gulf Studies, the new building of Sharjah Municipality, where the opening ceremony was held, and the King Faisal Mosque.
This year's festivities also come as the emirate celebrates its status as host for the Capital of Islamic Culture for 2014, said Sheikh Sultan bin Ahmed Al Qasimi, chairman of the executive committee of the 2014 Islamic Capital.
He said all festivals taking place in Sharjah this year would carry a theme that reflected the emirate as Islamic culture capital, starting with the Sharjah Light Festival.
The emirate has enjoyed an influx of visitors, with plenty of hotels fully booked a sign of the festival’s popularity, Mr Al Noman said. Audiences will also be able to enjoy international artists, whose work will be showcased around the emirate.
In future, Mr Al Noman said the organiser’s dreams would be to light up the whole of Sharjah instead of only selected buildings.
“This is so beautiful and I did not see the beauty of such architecture in the emirate,” said Mohammed Al Mansouri. “I think many more tourists would like what they have seen today and carry a good image of the progress of my country once they go back home.”
Taji Khan, who lives in Al Nabba, said he was grateful the organisers had brought the light festival to his neighbourhood.
“This is a heavily populated area in the emirate and many people would benefit from being able to watch this year’s festival near their homes rather than having to drive down to Al Qasba where it was held in previous years.”
ykakande@thenational.ae
