Al Dhafra Festival 2017

• Camel beauty tougher than ever to judge

• New dagger initiative launched

• First Emirati woman in Classic Car competition

This year’s Al Dhafra festival ran from the 14th till the 28th December, and included over 20; competitions, activities and shows, including some introduced for the first time to the festival by its organizer, the “Cultural Programmes and Heritage Festivals Committee” - Abu Dhabi.

Hundreds of daily visitors - Emiratis, expats and tourists - experienced the event this year, which included falcon and saluki races, camel market and parades on Million’s Street, the 48,000 square meters’ souk with its 100 Emirati shops, exhibitions, competitions, live entertainment and a children’s village and, at the heart of the festival, the camel mazayna (beauty) competitions.

All in all, 1,400 prizes were offered this year, worth AED 38 million, most of it (over AED 30 million) shared by winners of the 82 camel mazayna. Over the desert grounds beyond Madinat Zayed, in Al Dhafra region of Abu Dhabi emirate, hundreds of camps were set up by camel owners from across UAE, but also from Saudi Arabia, Oman and Kuwait, who brought their best camel herds to Al Dhafra Festival. Camel owners came in their thousands, most to participate in the camel mazayna competitions, but some just to trade camels.

“Al Dhafra Festival was another success story this year. We had thousands of visitors, including ambassadors, ministers and tourists from different parts of the world. We also had thousands of participants, not just in camel mazayna, but also in the sheep and camel milk competitions, best dates, handicrafts and cooking competitions, the Arabian saluki race and beauty contest, the falcon best in show and falcon racing and in the classic cars competition and the new poetry and shallah (chanted poems) contest,” said Mr. Obaid Khalfan Al Mazrouei, Planning and Projects Director at the Cultural Programmes and Heritage Festivals Committee - Abu Dhabi.