The wild motor festival that transforms the desert into something ‘like Mad Max’

By Joshua Korber Hoffman, CNN

The Empty Quarter, Abu Dhabi (CNN) — You hear it before you see it. Hundreds of all-terrain vehicles tearing across the desert, the roar of their engines echoing over the sand dunes. The noise goes all night long, making it impossible to grab any shuteye.

Not that anyone does.

“There is no sleep in Liwa,” says Ginger Krook, a 23-year-old motorsport enthusiast from the Netherlands. “It’s crazy.”

Each year, the Liwa International Festival draws crowds of car fanatics deep into the Empty Quarter, the vast desert stretching from the United Arab Emirates into Saudi Arabia.

Three hours’ drive from Abu Dhabi, the landscape is almost empty for most of the year, save for a new ribbon of blacktop and towering dunes.

In December, it becomes a dreamscape for motorheads.

“They come together and they drive,” says Krook, who plans to return for her fourth festival this December. “Everything you can think of related to off-road driving, you can find there.”

‘Full throttle or nothing’

Local Emiratis first recognized the motorsport potential of the Liwa Oasis more than two decades ago. They began gathering with their off-road vehicles at Moreeb Dune, the tallest in the region at more than 300 meters (about 1,000 feet). The challenge was simple: reach the top.

An official festival was created in 2004 and has grown steadily. In 2024, it drew more than 600,000 visitors, according to the event’s organizers. Alongside motorsports, a cultural program has taken shape, complete with fireworks each night.

But the central attraction — racing up the Moreeb Dune — remains the same.

“Everyone watches each other as they go up,” says Krook. “They are waiting for things to happen.”

Spectators cheer drivers on, but the dune is daunting. In Arabic, Moreeb means “terrifying.”

“If your tires are not big enough, your suspension is not good enough, you’re not able to come up,” she says. “You cannot be scared because it’s full throttle or nothing.”

Smaller, less terrifying dunes serve as obstacles in “dune-bashing” races, where cars and trucks dart and drift across the desert, leaving exhaust and plumes of sand in their wake.

It was “this kind of Mad Max-feeling city,” says Christian LeBlanc, 32, a Canadian influencer who attended last year. “There were these huge lights illuminating the dunes, and as we got closer you could see there were these (cars) driving up and down and up and down. We kept getting closer and closer, and (then) I could hear the chaos.”

Mixing with the locals

Despite its size, the Liwa Festival remains, at heart, a local gathering.

“It was very much an Emirati event,” says LeBlanc. “It allowed me to meet locals and really feel like I’m a fly on the wall experiencing something unique.”

The festival’s unrestrained energy, he adds, would be hard to imagine back in his homeland.

“It definitely wouldn’t fly in Canada,” he says. “There were absolutely crazy trucks just roaring up and down. I’ve never seen anything like it. It was deafeningly loud.”

This year’s event, running from December 12 to January 3, will feature the staples that have made Liwa famous: falconry, camel races, hot-air balloons, a New Year’s celebration and hundreds of food vendors.

“I think 100 or 200 restaurants came last season,” says Salem Almazrouei, founder of the nearby Liwa Nights Glamping Retreat. “More and more are coming.”

‘The crazier the better’

For most, the appeal is the freedom to drive across some of the world’s most challenging terrain, surrounded by fellow thrill-seekers.

“Every year you make new friends,” says Krook. “Everyone drinks coffee and tea, and barbecues together.”

Festivalgoers camp in tents or in their vehicles, lulled — or kept awake — by the roar of engines.

“I park my car on top of the hill and when I wake up I open my door and I see all the cars and all the campers and everything parked” on the sand, says Krook.

Not everyone is a fan of the Liwa International Festival. According to its official website, over 11 million liters of fuel were consumed last year. The pollution and noise are unavoidable.

But for those who savor the growl of a V8 engine, it is unmatched.

“We love it,” says Krook. “The crazier, the better.”

The-CNN-Wire
™ & © 2025 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All rights reserved.