IMAGINE, Dubai Festival City
A Guinness-record light, water and fire show on Festival Bay — lasers, fountains and 36 storeys of projection mapping on the InterContinental.
IMAGINE is a permanent multimedia light-and-water spectacular on Festival Bay at Dubai Festival City, launched in December 2016 by Al-Futtaim and designed by the Australian firm Laservision. Free to view and staged nightly after sunset, it transforms the waterfront and the facade of the InterContinental Hotel into a 360-degree storytelling canvas across an area of roughly 45,000 square metres.
The show combines projection mapping, high-definition video and water-screen projections (a total projection area of around 1,800 square metres across six water screens) with dynamic 360-degree fountains, high-powered lasers, more than 70 searchlights, over three million lumens of light, intelligent LED lighting, powerful flame effects and surround sound. Its projection-mapped canvas on the InterContinental Hotel covers about 4,857 square metres — some 36 storeys, billed as around four and a half times larger than the world's largest IMAX screen.
IMAGINE has earned two Guinness World Records — for the largest water-screen projection and the largest permanent projection-mapped surface — and runs a rotating repertoire of story-driven shows, including Stardancer, A Child's Dream, The Pirates' Tale and Hathi's Garden, choreographed to classical, Arabic and popular music. Positioned on the Dubai Creek waterfront beside Dubai Festival City Mall, it is one of the city's signature free evening attractions, viewable from multiple points around the bay.
Exhibo editorial
IMAGINE is Dubai doing what Dubai does: taking the idea of a fountain show and inflating it until it holds two world records. Lasers, fire, six water screens and a wall of projection thrown across 36 storeys of a hotel — all aimed at a bay you watch for free from whichever side you happen to be standing on.
What lifts it above pure spectacle is that it actually tells stories — a rotating set of them, from a dancer moving through the cosmos to a child's dream full of whales and robots — set to music and wrapped 360 degrees around the water. It's unashamedly a crowd-pleaser, and it earns the crowd. Get a spot on the Festival Bay promenade early, especially at weekends, and let the InterContinental disappear behind the projection.
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How to find it
IMAGINE runs on Festival Bay, on the waterfront just outside Dubai Festival City Mall, on the Dubai Creek. There is ample free parking at the mall; head to the Festival Bay entrance and the waterfront promenade. The show is free and staged nightly after sunset with multiple performances; arrive early for a good spot on the promenade, especially at weekends. Because it plays 360 degrees around the bay, each vantage point gives a slightly different view.
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