RIYADH – As the summer heat settles over Riyadh, a different kind of competition is heating up indoors, where families, friends and gaming enthusiasts are gathering around boards, screens and strategy tables for a festival built as much around socialising as winning.
More than 200 games, interactive experiences and daily competitions are on offer at Chapter 26, an indoor gaming festival running until August 21 at Malfa Hall in Prince Mohammed bin Salman Nonprofit City, or Misk City.
Open daily from 6 p.m. to 2 a.m., the festival features 28 interactive stations and brings together an unusually broad mix of entertainment, from traditional board and card games to electronic titles, chess, strategy and brain games, story-driven experience rooms and group challenges.
Tournaments and smaller contests run throughout the festival, giving visitors the chance to move between casual play and more competitive encounters.
But Chapter 26 is about more than the games themselves. Its appeal lies in bringing people together around a shared activity at a time when much of gaming is increasingly experienced through individual screens and online platforms.
Families can play together, friends can compete against one another and enthusiasts can test their skills against unfamiliar opponents, turning the festival into a space where entertainment is built around interaction rather than simply consumption.
Chess and strategy games are a prominent part of the offering, reflecting a form of gaming that demands patience, planning and problem-solving alongside the excitement of competition.
The event also offers a window into the changing character of Saudi Arabia’s entertainment industry, where home-grown concepts are increasingly appearing alongside the large concerts, sporting spectacles and international attractions that have helped transform the Kingdom’s leisure landscape in recent years.
That transformation has been accelerated by the General Entertainment Authority and major initiatives such as Riyadh Season, which have expanded the range of entertainment available to audiences as part of the Kingdom’s Vision 2030 drive to develop leisure, cultural and creative industries.
Chapter 26 represents a more intimate side of that transformation. Rather than relying on a large-scale spectacle, it builds its appeal around participation: sitting down, picking up a game, learning its rules and competing or collaborating with the people around you.
The festival also reflects the growing role of Saudi entrepreneurs and locally developed ideas in an entertainment market that is becoming increasingly sophisticated.
One of the founders of organiser Al-Saqeefa is a graduate of the Entertainment Leaders programme, part of the Joy Makers initiative. The programme is among the schemes through which the General Entertainment Authority supports Saudi talent by helping participants develop professional skills and gain experience in the entertainment sector.
That pipeline from training to entrepreneurship is becoming an increasingly important part of the Kingdom’s entertainment story. Locally owned ventures can help develop expertise not only in event production, but also in operations, content development, programming and the design of experiences for increasingly diverse audiences.
For entrepreneurs and small and medium-sized businesses, the emergence of such festivals can also provide a platform to test ideas, build audiences and establish relationships with potential partners across the growing entertainment ecosystem.
For visitors, however, the bigger industry story remains in the background.
The immediate attraction is simply the chance to play.
A family can settle around a board, friends can challenge each other over a strategy game, while more serious players can enter tournaments or explore electronic and interactive experiences. The result is an indoor summer destination where competition and socialising sit comfortably alongside one another.
In that sense, Chapter 26 captures a broader shift in how entertainment is being conceived in Riyadh: not simply as something to watch, but as something to participate in, share and remember.
Entry is free for children under six and people with disabilities, while tickets for other visitors are available through the Chapter 26 website.