Whether you are an adventure buff or a novice, you need not to go farther than Katara beach to soak in some water sports. At the two-month-long water festival, The Splash Water Park is bringing ultimate water sports competitions designed for everyone featuring some attractions held for the first time in Qatar.
Pull out your swim attire and get ready as the fun begins on September 1. From a mix of activities including aqua aerobics, music and dancing set at Katara beach 4, the festival promises to attract big audiences with some of its unique attractions such as the 150-metre-long zip line and 50-metre-long city slide.
Alaqat, the organisers of the event, promise to make it a great opportunity for both youngsters and elders alike with special packages designed for families. The Splash Water Park has reserved special discounts with special places for people who are physically challenged.
Some days during the two-month-long festival are reserved only for people with physical disabilities and the access will be free for them.
The organisers aim to make this “biggest beach festival in Qatar” a great opportunity for people to have fun, learn about the activities, sport and amazing facilities available to them at such a recreational space.
People should expect in this event that it is a family friendly environment. “It will be a very respectful and secure environment as we want families to feel at ease,” Hatim Aboussid, Business Development and Events Manager of Alaqat tells Community.
The park will feature a lot of water and sand activities including slip slides, inflatable games, and bubble soccer of different types, soapy fields and a water park city with interconnected games and competitions where both elders and youngsters can participate.
“These games are not plain simple neither are they too complicated. Everyone can try their hand at these games and they would find them equally exciting,” claims Aboussid.
The entire event, he adds, contains no hard materials on the venue that can pose risks to children. It is a family-oriented event with games and competitions especially designed for the Qatar audience. Unlike other water park facilities, this festival will see children taking part in competitive games instead of just playing around.
“We have done our research and we have found people are looking for a one-day pass kind of a scheme. You pay one fixed amount and do whatever you want as many times as you want on that day. You don’t leave until mid-day,” explains Aboussid.
The only added cost will be the surprise attraction of the event, the zip line. It’s two towers connected to each other on which visitors can rail down from one end to the other end and have an overview of the whole venue. It will give the visitors a spectacular view of Katara and the nearby sites. This attraction alone will cost QR100.
Among the first time ever in Qatar attractions, Aboussid says, there is the 50-metre long slide. “Whenever a person looks on YouTube or anywhere else for fun activities during summer, they see a lot of attractions that they have never experienced. We are bringing those attractions to Doha,” adds Aboussid.
The audience, he said, would be excited to know about water blobs, the kind of water beds on which the competing team members try to throw their respective opponents out into the water. There will be a city slip slide. It is a long slider which ends with a splash or a jump into the water. The festival is going to feature the longest so far in Qatar, 50 meters. Aboussid says it is going to be a truly summer experience.
Among the scores of competitions and games, some are only reserved for elders where the difficulty level is high. Besides, the festival will have an air-conditioned tent on the side for elderly and families who are not much interested in the sun.
“We are professional water and urban sports practitioners who also like to hang out with good music and nice and funny people,” say the organisers. The concept includes activities such as inflatable games in the water, human football, bumber ball championship and water volleyball championship on the beach.
There will be sporting action during the day and fun in the night. At sundown, the visitors will enjoy the food stalls and active nights. There will be live entertainment with music concerts and fire shows.
The concerts on the beach will provide the audience with a chance to hear great live music featuring local talents. The fire show is a mix of choreographed fire dancing with staff, poi, fans and lots of great surprises.
It will be done to contemporary music and at the end the audience will have a chance to get on stage with the performers. Aboussid says the organisers can also host group and staff parties, reunions and special occasions.
For security reasons, he says, the access to water games will be restrained after 7pm. However, the visitors will still have the chance to take a swim. After 7pm, there are a range of activities lined up on sand.
Aboussid says they are already in talks with the relevant authorities to extend the festival for another month. If it happens, the festival will be a three-month event which will come back every year during this time.
He says the inaugural event will be a chance for the organisers to see what clicks for the audience what does not and then re-assess their plans. There are currently no plans to make it permanent year-long features, says the organiser. However, they are open to such possibilities in future.
With the event, Aboussid says they are more specifically targeting families keeping in mind the needs of each member of the family. “We are looking to provide the people of Middle East a ground for entertainment in their own countries instead of travelling overseas. The expats should also feel happy on having such entertainment right here for their children and for themselves,” says Aboussid.
Following the water festival, Alaqat is organising a mega Philippines property and real-estate event, said Jihad Adouani, the Managing Director of Alaqat, which is an all-Qatari company. It will be an exhibition of property and real-estate opportunities in Philippines.