General Entertainment Authority

The General Entertainment Authority (GEA) is responsible for regulating the entertainment sector in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. It oversees entertainment events and activities through licensing and supervision. The authority also stimulates the private sector to contribute to the development of entertainment activities, in addition to attracting and training talents to work in the entertainment field.

The GEA conducts its operations from its headquarters in the capital, Riyadh. It possesses a legal personality and enjoys financial and administrative independence. Organizationally, it is linked to the head of the Council of Economic and Development Affairs. The authority has a board of directors responsible for overseeing its operations, and its chairman is appointed by a Royal Decree.

The General Entertainment Authority was established by a Royal Decree from the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques, King Salman Bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, on May 7, 2016. The initial organizational arrangements for the authority were adopted in 2016. Two years later, specifically in 2019, a resolution from the Council of Ministers approved a new regulation for the authority, replacing the previous one and nullifying any conflicting provisions.

The GEA organized major entertainment events, such as Riyadh Season 2019, 2021, and the Otr el-Kalam Program, which is the first competition that combines Quran recitation and Adhan (the call to prayer.) It's the world's largest competition for the Holy Quran and the Adhan, with participation from over forty thousand competitors worldwide and prizes totaling more than SAR12 million. The authority adopted major training initiatives, like the Happiness Creators Initiative to train one hundred thousand young men and women in various paths, in addition to training thirty leaders through the Entertainment Pioneers Program, which falls under the Happiness Creators Initiative.

The GEA organized various events, including Riyadh Boulevard City events that included concerts, musical and theatrical performances, children's events, and various exhibitions. It also organized WWE events, dancing fountains, the Mask Festival, the Jeddah For All Festival, the Riyadh Winter Championship, and many others.

Statistics recorded that the number of visitors to the events hosted by the GEA since its inception until 2023 exceeded seventy-five million. The total number of event days surpassed 126,000, with over 2,500 companies operating and sector revenues exceeding SAR1 billion.

Since its establishment, the GEA has introduced several programs, competitions, and initiatives. The most prominent are the Success Stories Initiative, training and qualification, the Entertainment Business Accelerator, the Enjoy Saudi (Live it) Platform dedicated to providing information about all entertainment activities in the Kingdom, al-Hosn Program, leading to the National Program for Discovering Entertainment Talents, Entertainment Challenges Program. In collaboration with other government entities, such as the Ministry of Tourism, it launched nearly eleven entertainment seasons across various regions of the Kingdom.

The GEA offers several licenses, including an entertainment center license, an operational permit for entertainment facilities, an accreditation certificate for selling entertainment activity tickets, management and development of artistic and entertainment talents, an accreditation certificate in organizing and managing crowds, an entertainment event permit, an entertainment show permit, live show permits in restaurants and cafes, and amusement park licenses.

The authority comprises sectors and departments operating under its umbrella, such as the General Department for Legal Affairs and Commitment, the General Department for Internal Audit and Risks, the Shared Services Sector, the Strategy Sector, the Finance Department, the Communication Sector, the Development Sector, and the Operations Sector.

On March 29, 2021, the GEA obtained the ISO Quality Certificate in the IT Service Management System, presented by the British Standards Institution (BSI). This certificate is the first international standard of its kind globally, focusing on information technology and how to manage services through it.

The GEA has a range of tasks and responsibilities, including developing plans that regulate the entertainment sector in the Kingdom, setting standards for hosting entertainment activities and ensuring their application, working on the entertainment sector and its development by attracting and training talents, establishing controls and standards that measure the performance of the entertainment sector in the Kingdom, creating databases dedicated to categorizing, evaluating, and ensuring the goals of entertainment facilities and activities are achieved, in addition to signing agreements and establishing partnerships with entities from both the public and private sectors to develop the entertainment sector in the Kingdom.

The entertainment festivals organized by the GEA have achieved records in the Guinness World Records. These include: The 2022 Outlet Shopping Festival, recognized as the largest temporary outlet in the world, covering more than 145,000 m² and featuring three million items from over 1,500 global brands.

The Noor Riyadh Festival 2022 achieved five other Guinness records, including four records for the Pulse of Light art installation: the longest distance covered for a light laser show, the largest light laser show, and the highest and largest retinal display on a building's facade. The fifth record was achieved by Organized Chaos as the largest number of drones used in a creative art show.

In 2022, the Riyadh Season achieved four Guinness records, including recording one hundred songs using hologram technology, displaying the largest Formula One car model made from LEGO with half a million LEGO cubes at the Riyadh Car Exhibition. The giant slide in Riyadh Boulevard City achieved two records as the world's longest and has the most diverse tracks of its kind in the field of entertainment, reaching a height of 22.136 m, a length of approximately 117 m, a width of about 56.5 m, and a total of twenty-four tracks.