A Thousand and One Drops Off Riyadh’s October Calendar

A Thousand and One is no longer listed for sale on MDLBEAST’s ticket and calendar pages for October 29 and 30 in Riyadh. The June launch had put two-day passes at SAR309, 40 percent off, for a second Banban edition after organizers had already pulled an April weekend.

The same Thursday and Friday now sell as an indoor electronic bill at Jeddah’s ONYX Arena, with 11 named artists and a 16-and-over door. The desert storybook night that was supposed to open outdoor season is the date that lost its checkout button.

Official Pages No Longer List the October Banban Run

MDLBEAST’s public events board still shows A Thousand and One 2025 as a past Riyadh date, April 24 and 25, and it currently has no 2026 Banban edition listed beside the club-scale nights that remain on sale. The dedicated 2026 ticket URLs on NOFOMO, the company’s app-only gate system, no longer resolve to a live cart.

Riyadh event listings said the festival had already been pushed to 2027 before Soundstorm’s own note went out, after the show had been moved once from April to October. MDLBEAST has not posted a matching 2027 1001 date on the calendar that still carries Beast House and other smaller bills.

WHAT WE KNOW

• The listing: October 29 and 30 at Banban are not on the live MDLBEAST calendar or a working NOFOMO 1001 cart.
• The June sale: Two-day passes were offered at SAR309, with a four-person bundle at SAR1,049, both at 40 percent off.
• The replacement weekend: Those dates now sell as MDLBEAST Presents at ONYX Arena in Jeddah.
• The flagship: Soundstorm, set for December 3 and 4 at the same Banban grounds, was pulled in a September 30 email to ticket holders.

WHAT IS UNCONFIRMED

• A 2027 1001 date: No new Banban weekend is published on the official events board.
• June refunds: Soundstorm buyers were told to use email instructions; a parallel process for 1001 passes has not been posted on the pages that still load.
• A renamed desert night: Nothing on the calendar occupies Banban on October 29 and 30 under another title.

That gap is the whole change from the June ticket drop. The company can still fill a room in Jeddah. It is not, on its own sites, selling the four-stage desert sequel it put on sale for late October.

Two-Day Passes Went on Sale at SAR309

On June 29, tickets opened on NOFOMO for Thursday, October 29 and Friday, October 30 at Banban, Riyadh 13571. The two-day festival pass was listed at SAR309 and a four-person two-day bundle at SAR1,049, both at 40 percent off for a limited window. Four singles at the listed pass price would have cost SAR1,236, so the bundle undercut that by SAR187 if both offers were live together.

Higher tiers were named in the same drop, with every option covering both nights, parking, all-stages access, and wallet credit for food, merch, or festival glam. VIB, Backstage, and a Qafilah Stage Balcona seat were described as coming soon in that first window.

JUNE 2026 TICKET TIERS

The Balcona figure sat more than a hundred times above the discounted two-day pass, which tells you how the company wanted the Qafilah stage sold: as a private perch, not as general admission with nicer tape. Gates were set from 7pm to 4am, with last entry at 2am, and the night was 18 and over. Entry still ran through the NOFOMO app, the same scan used for Soundstorm and the Jeddah arena shows.

A 2026 artist bill was never published. Marketing promised more than 70 acts across themed stages and a Bizarre Bazaar, then left the names off the poster while the cheap two-day stock was the thing actually for sale.

The April Dates That Did Not Survive March

The October weekend was already a second try. Local listings in early February had A Thousand and One back at Banban on April 23 and 24, 2026, a near copy of the debut weekend. On March 17, a widely shared festival post said those April dates were off because organizers wanted more time to raise the production, and it told buyers to watch their email.

When tickets returned on June 29, the public line was cooler weather. Saudi outdoor nights get usable after the summer, and October is when Riyadh Season-style programming usually thickens. The company did not, in that relaunch copy, walk back the March production delay; it simply sold a new pair of dates.

HOW THE 2026 DATES MOVED

1. April 24, 2025: The debut opens at Banban with four themed stages and a two-night electronic bill.
2. April 25, 2025: Night two closes the first edition; two-day general admission had started at SAR189.
3. March 17, 2026: The planned April 23 and 24, 2026 weekend is postponed, with ticket holders told to check email.
4. June 29, 2026: NOFOMO opens October 29 and 30 passes at SAR309, 40 percent off.
5. September 30, 2026: Soundstorm ticket holders receive an email that the December 3 and 4 Banban flagship will not run as planned.
6. October 1, 2026: MDLBEAST’s public Soundstorm note points to 2027, while the 1001 October cart is gone from the official pages that still load.

Other Saudi spring events also slipped in 2026 as regional airspace and security problems piled up, but the March 1001 note did not cite that. It cited the show. By the time October arrived, the cooler-season argument no longer had a Banban product attached to it.

What the 2025 Nights Put on Four Themed Stages

The thing buyers thought they were re-entering is not a mystery, because the first edition actually happened. MDLBEAST staged A Thousand and One on April 24 and 25, 2025, at Banban, and still publishes the map of four connected storybook stages drawn from One Thousand and One Nights. General admission that year started at SAR189 for both nights, with VIB from SAR599, and the GA pass included parking, all-stages access, and 25 SAR of wallet credit a day.

Turki Alalshikh, posting the night before those gates opened, pushed a 50 percent discount code GA1001 for the first thousand buyers and called 1001 a new MDLBEAST concept. The on-site bill mixed global electronic names with Saudi and regional DJs, more than 60 artists across the weekend, with DJ Snake, R3HAB, and Salvatore Ganacci among the Thursday draws and Eric Prydz, ARTBAT, Hot Since 82, Dixon, Marco Carola, and Nicole Moudaber among the Friday set.

THE FOUR NAMED STAGES

• Qafilah: A caravan stage sold as a moving desert column, the same name later attached to the SAR33,299 Balcona perch.
• Qasr: A palace ballroom build, billed as the sultan’s hall turned into a dancefloor.
• Bustan: An orchard oasis, with sets from Innellea, Parallelle, Zamna Soundsystem, and Øostil on the 2025 board.
• Sahaab: A suspended cloud stage, programmed as the float between the other three rooms.

Bizarre Bazaar and a Radio Stage sat beside that quartet, which is how a “four-stage” poster still produced a long undercard. Hours matched the 2026 relaunch: 7pm to 4am, last entry at 2am, 18 and over. That is the specimen. The sequel was sold as the same world with more than 70 artists and no names, then taken off the board before those names ever landed.

Jeddah’s ONYX Arena Took That Thursday and Friday

MDLBEAST did not leave October 29 and 30 blank. NOFOMO is selling two nights at Onyx Arena in Jeddah under the MDLBEAST Presents banner, with general admission shown from SAR250 against a SAR450 reference price. Company FAQs state that Onyx Arena opens October 29 and runs through October 30, 16 and over, with gates at 7pm, music from 8pm to 4am, and last entry at 3am.

The indoor bill names 11 acts. October 29 lists BLOND:ISH, Boris Brejcha, Jimi Jules, Baloo, and Vinyl Mode. October 30 lists Argy, Dennis Cruz, Loco Dice, Steve Angello, Blacky, and HiFi. Several of those regional names, Baloo, Vinyl Mode, and Blacky, had already played the 2025 1001 desert site. The October product that still has a buy button moved them into a seated-capacity arena on the Red Sea, not back onto Banban sand.

THE WEEKEND THAT CHANGED ROOMS

That is a different night, sold to a younger door, with a published lineup the Banban sequel never got. October in the company’s own grid now leans Jeddah: Black Coffee is already booked at the same arena on October 23, and the 29 and 30 programme sits on top of that run. Riyadh still has Beast House club dates. It does not, on the official calendar, have 1001.

Banban Now Has No Outdoor Festival Left This Year

The site north of Riyadh was supposed to carry two MDLBEAST desert weekends in late 2026: 1001 at the end of October, then Soundstorm on December 3 and 4. Soundstorm is the scale product, 14 stages and more than 250 artists in 2025, and it is the one the company addressed in public. Ticket holders got the first note on September 30. The next-day Instagram copy used the same regret line the company has now repeated across its channels.

We know we said we’d see you at Soundstorm this year, so this is not the update we wanted to share. With regret, this year’s Soundstorm will not take place as planned. We will turn all our excitement and energy to the 2027 edition, and come back better and stronger.

MDLBEAST, Instagram statement on Soundstorm 2026

The email to buyers called Soundstorm ’26 postponed. The public post said it will not take place as planned and pointed people at mdlbeast.com and the NOFOMO app for whatever was still upcoming. Unstable had just run in Riyadh on October 1 and 2. Balad Beast had already gone ahead in Jeddah on February 5 and 6. The events that require a full Banban build are the ones that dropped off.

Large outdoor bills across the region have been messy through 2026, and the Soundstorm pull landed in that pile, which is why an indoor Jeddah arena date is the checkout that still works. A Thousand and One never received a statement of that length. It received silence on the cart. Anyone who paid SAR309 in June is left with whatever NOFOMO support sends by email, while the company sells the same Thursday and Friday as a 16-and-over arena night on the other side of the kingdom.

Banban’s 2026 outdoor year is now a blank after Unstable. Jeddah’s ONYX weekend is the MDLBEAST product that still has a price, a door policy, and 11 names attached to October 29 and 30.