Sixth Emirates International Date Palm Festival to Showcase Several New Attractions
Sixth Emirates International Date Palm Festival to Showcase Several New Attractions
11/5/2013 12:00 AM
  The sixth consecutive edition of The Emirates International Date Palm Festival, held at Abu Dhabi National Conventional Centre during November 21 � 26, 2013, will have a number of new social, cultural, heritage and artistic events aimed at attracting various segments of the community to the Festival.

Held under the patronage of His Highness Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Deputy Prime Minister of the UAE, minister of Presidential Affairs and Chairman of Abu Dhabi Food Control Authority (ADFCA) and co-located with the SIAL Middle East in a vast exhibition space measuring more than 3000 square meters, the Festival will have six new programs this year, in addition to the already rich variety of attractions. The Festival is organized by Abu Dhabi Food Control Authority (ADFCA) in association with the Date Palm Friends Society. SIAL Middle Company will execute the event.

The Organizing Committee for the Festival revealed that among the attractions is a Local Cultural Oasis' designed in the shape of the UAE map, in which a wide variety of date palms would be showcased. Another specialty will be a 'Scientific Maze,' built in the form of a date palm, on whose inner walls will be placed educational pictures to guide the visitors to the maximum historical information and knowledge about dates and date palms.

One other attraction, according to the Organizing Committee, will be the "Tests Corner," which will comprise a number of questions on dates displayed on a giant screen. The visitors can answer them and win fabulous prizes. "The Visitors' Wall,' another attraction, will feature two huge boards on which the visitors can leave short hand-written messages, to be preserved as a souvenir of the event.

Mohamed Jalal Al Rayssi, the Chairman of the Organizing Committee for the Festival, said the diverse events were meticulously designed in keeping with the interests of the various segments and age groups of the visitors to the event. "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 humungous amount of information about the blessed tree," he pointed out.

"Our endeavor 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," Al Rayssi added.

The Festival also comprises the National Theatre and the Traditional Heritage Kitchen. These are two separate areas allocated within which there would be held a variety of heritage events, folklore skits, children's plays, display of traditional clothes, sand art and the showcasing of examples of the recycling of various parts of the date palm. The traditional kitchen will see various dates' delicacies being made by well known chefs from around the Arab world.

Several of the popular programs from the previous years will continue to attract visitors this year too, such as the date tasting area, date palm climbing, date cooking, children's area, photography competition, traditional tents and Emirati coffee and sweet making, calligraphy. There will be a variety of programs for the kids too. More than 175 exhibitors from around 15 countries are expected to take part in  the Festival.  A number of international experts on the dates industry and more than 25000 visitors are also expected to visit the festival this year. 

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  • Last Updated On: Dec 11, 2014