1001 – A Thousand and One is a new immersive music and arts festival launched by MDLBEAST in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Inspired by the timeless tales of One Thousand and One Nights, the festival reimagines the region’s rich storytelling heritage through large-scale live performance, stage design, and world-class music programming.
Debuting in 2025, the festival transformed the desert site north of Riyadh into a fantastical realm of sound and spectacle, with each of its four stages — Qafilah, Qasr, Bustan and Sahaab — conceived as a distinct chapter within an overarching narrative. From the moving caravan and palace grandeur to the lush garden oasis and dream-like cloudscape, every environment offered audiences a uniquely atmospheric experience.
John was contracted by NEWSUBSTANCE during the early white-card and conceptual development phase of the project. His role involved setting up the base model drawings for a number of the festival’s stages — taking 3D exports based on existing MDLBEAST site infrastructure and redrawing, cleaning, and simplifying them to produce efficient, low-file-size models. These CAD files supported both the creative and production design of the stages by NEWSUBSTANCE, enabling early design team coordination and helping to accurately drive the next phase of development.
The inaugural edition of A Thousand and One marks MDLBEAST’s continued evolution of Saudi Arabia’s large-scale cultural landscape — merging music, art, and narrative into an immersive live experience unlike any other in the region.
The stage design is next level!
Mochakk [DJ]
