Summer festivals are among the most popular cultural events the world over. In Egypt the cultural season ends on 30 June, and July and August are taken up by festivals. Three of them overlap: the Cairo Opera House Summer Festival, which also takes place in the Alexandria and Damanhour operas (17 July-30 August), the Bibliotheca Alexandrina International Summer Festival (1-31 August), and New Alamein Festival (15 July-30 August). Each has its own dynamics and attracts its own audience, but a deeper look also reveals a unique trajectory.

The Cairo, Alexandria, and Damanhour festivals as well as the Bibliotheca Alexandrina festival are well established events. For years, if not decades, carving their way through the country’s ever changing socioeconomic map, they have presented beloved and familiar faces to the audience while also introducing promising talents. Both are platforms graced by well recognised Egyptian musicians, but participation in one of them is a major stepping stone for many a budding artist.

This year, the opera’s highlights have already included already performances by Fathy Salama and Sheikh Mahmoud El-Tohamy in Cairo, Reham Abdel-Hakim and Hanan Mady in Alexandria, and Wael Al-Fashny in Damanhour.  Nesma Mahgoub has her Cairo concert on 29 July and will perform at the Alexandria Opera House on 2 August. The second month of summer will also feature Al-Hadra troupe for religious chanting (20 August in Cairo), Marwa Nagy (8 August in Alexandria, 9 August in Damanhour), and Sheikh Mahmoud El-Tohamy (2 August in Damanhour). Each city will also host the Arabic Music Ensemble, demonstrating the numerous twists and turns of the Arabic music repertoire. An important spot is given to students of the Talents Development Centres, with concerts showcasing the fruits of educational activities led by each opera in its respective city.

The opera events take place mostly on the weekend, providing much-needed refreshment to a large audience flocking to the theatres. However, the total of 19 concerts in three cities (eight in Cairo, five in Alexandria and six in Damanhour) stretches across six weeks, giving an impression of scarcity. Those who attended the opera festivals in the last two-three years remember that the more compact programme tended to boost the festive atmosphere. The situation was even more vibrant a decade ago, when the longer festival had a proportionally higher number of events running through the whole week. Suffice it to say that in the mid-2010s, the opera’s Summer Festival offered more than 30 concerts in Cairo alone, hosting well-established and up-and-coming independent musicians on its many stages.
In fact many of the names that do not take the stage of the Cairo Opera Summer Festival this year are featured in the Bibliotheca Alexandrina festival. Maybe it is time the Mediterranean city enjoyed their performances; hopefully they will return to Cairo for the 32nd Citadel Festival for Music and Singing by the end of August.

For a few years now, the Bibliotheca Alexandrina has kept up the pace with an event-packed summer festival. The largest of its kind in the Mediterranean city, the Bibliotheca Alexandrina Summer Festival was inaugurated in 2002. The event was cancelled a few times between 2011 and 2013, but returned in 2014 with a longer, richer 12th round featuring a great line-up full of regional names.

This year, the festival’s 21st round takes place between 1 and 31 August, offering more than one creative event per day. The programme boasts a total of 42 events (some taking place over a few days) showcasing many musicians, bands, stage plays, dance performances, film screenings, workshops, and family-oriented events.

The music highlights for Alexandrian audience include concerts by Hamza Namira (with the first on 1 August), Nouran Aboutaleb (5 August); Hisham Abbas (6 August); Abu (12 August), Omar Khairat (14 and 15 August), Khaled Al-Kammar (19 August), Fouad and Mounib performing with the Albaluna Band (20 August), the High Dam band (21 August), Ali El-Haggar (23 August), Hisham Kharma (26 August), Anoushka (29 August), Saad El-Oud (30 August), and Sharmoofers (31 August). The programme will also feature musicians from Tunisia, Germany, Portugal, France, and the USA. Some concerts are accompanied by the Bibliotheca Alexandrina Orchestra at the venue’s Grand Hall or in its Open-air Plaza, with both accommodating large numbers of audiences.

And, speaking of the Mediterranean coast, the newly launched New Alamein Festival has become a destination for Egyptian North Coast lovers. “Set to dazzle,” wrote Ameera Fouad on those pages last year, the newly launched festival “aims to attract more than a million visitors” to a new city “located within the administrative borders of Marsa Matrouh governorate. It sprawls over 50,000 feddans (around 200 square kilometres) and is divided into three sectors: international tourism, urban, and archaeological.”

In its second round this year, the New Alamein Festival had its grand opening on 12 July with a concert by Mohamed Mounir. Focusing on weekends, the festival has already hosted Kazim Al-Sahir, Majida El-Roumy accompanied by the United Philharmonic Orchestra and Choir under the baton of Nader Abbassi, Tamer Hosny, Hany Shenouda and Al-Masryeen band, Fouad Abdelwaheb and Aseel Hameem.

The festival will be presenting even more stars in Cassette 90, a concert featuring numerous 1990s legends including Hamid El-Shaeri, Ehab Tawfik, Mohamed Fouad, Khaled Aggag, Hisham Abbas, on 1 August. It will be followed with concerts by Ramy Gamal (2 August), Omar Khairat (2 August), Amr Diab (9 August), Souad Massi, Masar Egbari, and Hamza Namira (16 August), Cairokee (23 August), and Wegz (30 August), among others.

The New Alamein Festival also presents stage plays, each running for a few days in a row. The Egyptian Culture Ministry has stepped in with its own programming, in addition to popular bands joining Al-Alamein on side stages. Besides entertainment, the festival includes sports events – diving, volleyball, padel tournaments, sky sports, and mixed martial arts – as well as family activities such as the Pets Zone shows.

It is hardly worth mentioning that the ticket price for New Alamein Festival events is incomparably higher than that for Cairo Opera and Bibliotheca events. The Cairo, Alexandria and Damanhour Opera Houses are known for their affordable prices, with Cairo tickets – the highest priced – ranging from EGP 250 to 350, and Damanhour’s – the lowest – from EGP 75 to 200. The Bibliotheca tickets average is EGP 150-250, yet there are those starting from EGP 50 and those going all the way up to EGP 700 for better seats in select performances. Only a few events are more expensive, such as the Omar Khairat concert, at EGP 570-970.

The New Alamein Festival is supported by a long list of Egyptian corporate companies sponsoring events, hence elevating the festival’s benchmark, and the price bracket. The average starting price for concerts by well-known stars is EGP 500 (EGP 300-1000 for stage plays). In most concerts, the price will skyrocket in the case of special seats (high tables and lounges), reaching tens of thousands. The record ticket price seems to be that for a concert featuring Fouad Abdel-Wahed and Aseel Hameem, where the cheapest ‘regular’ ticket is priced at EGP 5000, and a lounge for 10 persons – and after-party – costs EGP 200,000.

The high-entertainment note, lavish line-up and high prices make it clear that the New Alamein Festival targets a well-off margin of the Egyptian audience. It is also obvious that the new coastal festival aims to create a thrill similar to that experienced during the Riyadh and Jeddah Seasons. No wonder some events are organised in collaboration with both the Saudi General Entertainment Authority and Riyadh Season, an example of which is the Cassette 90 event, which premiered in August last year in Jeddah. Saudi collaboration is also apparent in a couple of concerts including Amr Diab’s, and a few stage plays (El-Telefizion, Sindbad, The Bank Robbers, etc) featuring Egyptian film stars and produced especially for the Alamein stage.

The luxury character of the New Alamein Festival makes it unaffordable to many fans, but the financial gap widening between Egyptian social strata is somehow remedied by a few highly popular Egyptian artists and bands. Musicians such as Hamza Namira, Ali El-Haggar, Cairokee, Masar Egbari, and a few others, reach out to their fans across different venues: from the high-end stages to more affordable locations in other cities.

Though not without its own worries and challenges, the Bibliotheca Alexandrina still manages to attract some very well-known names, striking a good balance in its festive programming. As for the Cairo, Alexandria and Damanhour operas, the history of those events shows we can ask for more, and hopefully a more vibrant line-up will be organised for future summer festivals. The upcoming 32nd Citadel Festival for Music and Singing is bound to come with a lot of new attractions, allowing the audience to close the summer musically fulfilled.

* A version of this article appears in print in the 1 August, 2024 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly