Emirates Date Palm Festival to showcase Emirati culture

The event will run from November 21-26 at the Abu Dhabi National Convention Centre.

ABU DHABI // The sixth Emirates International Date Palm Festival is set to get underway next month.

The event, showcasing Emirati culture and heritage, will run from November 21-26 at the Abu Dhabi National Convention Centre.

Organisers expect more than 175 exhibitors from around 15 countries to take part in the festival and hope to attract more than 25,000 visitors.

“The festival will include a museum with all the interesting facts about the dates and the date palm, farming and harvesting and the various methods of manufacturing dates derivatives, exposing the visitors to a humongous amount of information about the blessed tree,” said Mohamed Al Rayssi, chairman of the festival’s organising committee.

“Our endeavour was to line up a comprehensive and complete set of attractive events so that the festival turns into a important platform to build partnership between the exhibitors and the international trade firms, as well as to strengthen the bonds between local emirati and global companies,” he said.

The festival also features the National Theatre and a traditional heritage kitchen.

The theatre will host a variety of heritage events, folklore skits, children’s plays, display of traditional clothes, sand art and examples of the recycling of various parts of the date palm.

The traditional kitchen will see various date-based delicacies being made by well-known chefs from around the Arab world.

Other activities include date tasting, date palm climbing, date cooking, children’s area and a photography competition.