‘El Beit’ poetry show attracts huge numbers of enthusiasts from all over the Gulf

In line with the vision of His Highness Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Crown Prince of Dubai, the second episode of the third season of ‘El Beit’ poetry show was aired at 10.30pm on Monday January 11th.

El Beit show is organized and produced by Hamdan Bin Mohammed Heritage Center. Filming took place at the show’s studio in Dubai Studio City.

Doubled numbers of participation

The second episode of the show’s third season made an impressive beginning, with participating posts on social media doubling compared to previous seasons. Youngsters, the largest group of participants, find it easy to register on the show’s web site and send their entries via Twitter. Over 18,000 people took part in the ‘Nabd Al Soura’ (where participants have to write a verse to describe an image) segment of the poetry show.

Winner of the ‘Al Chater’ (missing verse) segment

The poetry show officially began with the Al Chater segment before an enthusiastic poetry and literature audience. The first half of a verse (Al Chater) on the show’s official web site and Dubai’s Al Oula TV began like this: “If you get to see life in the eyes of an elder person…” The audience had to send in the second verse, through tweets on (@el_beit). These tweets were evaluated by a screening committee before being sent to the jury without any knowledge of the names of the participants.

Both the panel of judges and the guest of honour selected Meshaan Al Rikhemi as the first winner which earned him AED100,000. Al Rihemi composed the following ‘chater’ verse in response to ‘If you get to see life in the eyes of the elder… You will only find that the cradle looks like the shroud.’ His eloquence and ability to understand deeper meanings qualified him to participate in the Grand Finale episode where he stands to win AED1,000,000.

Barakat Al Wagayan, host of the second episode of the third season, then welcomed Al Hareth Wazea from Bahrain, winner of the first episode of El Beit poetry show. The panel of judges praised his ability to understand the meaning of the first part of the verse and write an interesting second part to match the ‘chater’ (first part of the verse).

In its third season, El Beit TV program is recognising creative poets and supporters of Nabati poetry. The show’s organisers have managed to give the best of poetry to the UAE and Arab Gulf nations. The show aims to showcase talented young poets and revive poetry among the youth.

Al Hareth Wazea complimented El Beit poetry show, saying that it is a good way to develop talent. It is also good that poets can compete in easily and privately in the show.

He added: “I am sincerely grateful and I appreciate the show’s team for implementing new ideas which have enhanced its stature on the poetry map and increased the level of participation and acceptability. The show will help preserve the culture of poetry and support young and creative talents”.

The 3rd season of El Beit new mechanism and additions

Among the most prominent additions this season is a guest of honour, a poet who recites verses in the ‘Shalla’ style popular to the GCC region. A different guest will be hosted in each episode. This week’s guest was introduced by the co-host for the third season, Emirati poet Ahmed Al Bidwawi. The pioneer of the Shalla style, Abdul Aziz Al Elawi from KSA, chose the distinguished verse by Majed Al Harbi who won AED 100,000.

The guest, expressing his happiness, explained: “The idea of this program is unique. Creating a missing verse (Al Chater) is not easy. The show’s cultural elements have contributed to the convergence of the poetic visions of the GCC and folk poetry.”

The poetry show will play a vital role in educating the public about different schools of poetry in the GCC region in an exciting and easy atmosphere of a competition aired in the form of a TV show running with state – of – the art technologies.

Everybody is a winner with El Beit

In support of this educational and highly cultural TV show, El Beit will give all non-winner semi-finalists who show up on the golden screen a generous grant of AED 10,000.

Beside the winner of Nabd Al Sours, two runners up will win a generous AED 50,000.

The Technology

In season 3, ‘Augmented Reality’ was used in the software for the first time in the Middle East. Throughout the competition and phases of the show, we see the graphics and verses float in space with 3D effect.

Ionoco’s social media integrated technology lies at the heart of El Beit, driving every phase of the production, from interfacing with Twitter’s platform to retrieve entries, to creating a huge database that includes not only the submitted poems but every contestant’s information. It even provides automatic moderation to remove inappropriate words and duplications from the entries. The committee of poets access the moderated verses via a secure web interface whose job it is to whittle down the large number of entries to a single winning verse.

Synchronized real-time graphic outputs for the huge LED screens, individual judge displays and voting interfaces, and a stage control system orchestrating all the technological underpinnings needed to make the complex show work in real time were special features of the poetry show.

The mix of traditional Arabic poetry with modern technology and platforms of communication is a compelling proposition, and one that looks set for pan-regional success.

The set of El Beit season 3 is built over 2000 square metres with more than 224 sq metres of curved LEDs and more than 61 LED light beams incorporated at the Center of the set.

Lessons leant from judges of El Beit

The judges of El Beit show are providing detailed explanations on air, so that the viewer gets a taste of the difficulty in assessing the winning verse. The knowledge gained from the judges’ deliberations and final advices to the participants are as valuable as the Golden Screen which reveals the 12 semi-finalists of the missing verse (Al Chater) segment.

The Nabd Al Soura ‘Imagery Pulse’ competition

Last week’s episode featured a winning image. The winner of the first prize of AED 100,000 went to Sultan Al Omar for his verse: ..‘On our screen a song is playing, yet we dream of watching a cartoon movie… We snatch half the dream when the rest is playing on our screen..!’.

Two runners-up Saleh Ali Al Manea and Salim Jalawi Al Mihanna won AED 50,000 each.

The new addition to this segment of the show is that all the remaining non-winning participants who reached the show screen gets a good consolation prize of AED 10K.

The host then announced the second Nabd Al Soura “Imagery Pulse” competition for which viewers will write a verse that sums up the concept of the image and send it to El Beit’s official Twitter account (@el_Beit) or official website www.elbeit.ae, where the competition will be open until mid-day on Friday. The first place winner will get AED 100,000 while two runners-up will each get AED 50,000. However only the first-placed participant qualifies for the Grand Finale.

The show is hosted by Barakat Al Wagyan and the co-host for the second season is Emirati poet Ahmed Al Bidwawi. (ends)