Saudi Arabia Festivals and Celebrations

The short version

Two calendars. The religious one is lunar and moves earlier each year, which means Ramadan, Eid and Hajj land on different Gregorian dates every time. The civil and cultural calendar is fixed, and most of what is on it did not exist fifteen years ago.

The ardha

The ardha is the Najdi sword dance, and it is the country's defining formal ceremony: lines of men in traditional dress, drums, poetry chanted between the lines, and swords held upright rather than swung. It is performed at national occasions and at cultural events, and it is regularly staged at At-Turaif in Diriyah, against the floodlit mud-brick walls of the first Saudi capital. Seeing it there rather than in a hall is a different experience, and it is the single performance we would build an evening around.

Ramadan and Eid

Ramadan reorganises the country for a month. Daylight hours are quiet, public eating and drinking are not acceptable, and then the evening arrives and the cities fill. Eid al-Fitr at the end of it and Eid al-Adha later in the year are the two great celebrations, and both are family occasions above all.

Travelling during Ramadan is genuinely rewarding if you go in understanding what it asks of you. It is not a good choice for a first trip built around long days at desert sites.

Hajj, and what it means for a visitor

The pilgrimage is the largest annual movement of people in the country and it changes the western region completely. For an ordinary traveler the practical consequence is a restriction: during the Hajj season the authorities have stopped visitors who are not performing the pilgrimage from flying to Jeddah, Madinah and Taif.

LABUSA Travel does not organise Hajj or Umrah. We mention the season because it governs flights and hotel availability across half the country, not because it is something we sell.

National Day

Marked in September with flags, fireworks, concerts and a great deal of green. Cities are busy and hotels fill.

The new seasons

Riyadh Season and its equivalents in other cities are large, fixed-date entertainment programmes built over the last decade: concerts, sport, food and enormous constructed venues such as Boulevard City. They are the most visible face of how quickly the country's public life has changed, and whether they are your kind of thing or not, they fill hotels and are worth knowing about when you choose dates.

See when to go and At-Turaif.

Sources

• UNESCO World Heritage Centre: the inscription of the At-Turaif District in ad-Dir’iyah in 2010 under criteria (iv)(v)(vi). Accessed 14 September 2026.
• UK Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office: Saudi Arabia entry requirements: the visa requirement, the electronic travel authorisation and its 730-day validity, six months of passport validity and the penalties for overstaying. Accessed 14 September 2026.
• UK Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office: Saudi Arabia travel advice: the FCDO advises against all travel to parts of Saudi Arabia and against all but essential travel to further parts. Accessed 14 September 2026.