Wednesday, February 15, 2017

Al Noor Mosque Sharjah Light Festival 2017


Every year during the first week of February for about 4 or 5 years now, Sharjah celebrates their annual Light Festival. They light up significant cultural structures with laser light shows and decorate with different kinds of light arts. Every year is slightly different than the previous years, adding variation here and there to keep the festival fresh and exciting. But they keep some yearly staples that are crowd favourites. This is one of my super favourite time of the year and I really do wish that their budget permitting, the government would do this for more years to come. The weather is also perfect because February is winter and the nights are especially nice and breezy. Bringing jacket, gloves, scarves, bonnets and probably a thermos of hot cocoa is also advisable.

One of the yearly crowd favourite and a Sharjah Light Festival staple is the laser light show in Al Noor mosque right beside the Khalid Lagoon in Buheirah Corniche. The beautiful and elegant mosque is lit with candy coloured lights and appears surreal and cartoonish. If not for the solid structures you can touch, you’d think the mosque is only a caricature of lights instead of a real standing edifice.

On its own, the Al Noor Mosque is already beautiful and elegant. The show always begins by showing it in its natural magnificence against the night time sky.
 
 
Then the laser light will slowly creep in into the structure building momentum to bring about a cacophony of colours.
 
  
 
The first set is a trip to a mixture of clashing colors. This actually looks way much better in real life but I must admit that this set is not exactly my favourite.

 
 
The second set is more colour coordinated. The theme is fairyland and butterflies in what I can only suppose is candy colours.
 
 
Then we also had a purple fantasy land with unidentified floating creatures in colours that are colour coordinated with the land of purple.

 
 
 
For some reason, all I can think about is Barbie's world when I see this next set of laser light colours. There is something girly and less candy and fairy with the colour combination.

 
 
 This one on the other hand is just a splash of pastel colours combined all together. I guess the theme is, "be happy"

 
 
  
The last bit is different but quite forgettable since most of the previous laser light combinations are exceptionally dazzling. But I guess you have to take a break from a trip to surreal lane.

 
  
Overall, the Al Noor Mosque Sharjah Light Festival is a wonderful and unique experience. The best part of all is that this is an open air event that is free for all. All you had to do is find the time to be there. The hardest bit that you will have to do is just find parking. 

33 comments:

  1. This looks really beautiful! What a beautiful building and a really interesting light show! I wish your pictures were a little bigger ~ just so I could see it better.

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    1. thank you becki =) I tried making them bigger than this but they end up messing the template of the blog. I will try other editing techniques later on

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  2. It looks so pretty. I agree with Becki above, bigger pictures could have driven this post home. Is this India or Turkey, not sure.

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    1. hi! this is in Sharjah, united arab emirates. this place is 20 minutes away from Dubai

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  3. What a beautiful mosque... I never knew mosques also have such light presentations .thanx for sharing

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    1. they do it yearly for a week here every first week of February

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  4. I imagine this is tons of fun and draws in lots of people who want to watch the show. Should I ever find myself in the right place at the right time, I think this would be a must-see for my family.

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    1. it does draw a lot of people during the weekends. A little sparse with people though during the weekdays

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  5. This must be a sight to behold! Not sure that I will get to it before the end of my lifetime but we shall see. Thanks for sharing though!

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  6. This is really beautiful! I love that it's an open air, free event available to anyone. I'm sure parking is a nightmare if you don't plant for it though. It's got to be a big draw for families to come out and see!

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    1. we are lucky that it was just a 5 minute walk away from home.

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  7. The lights festival looks beautiful and fun to attend. It looks like a good place for family and friends to get together and have some fun.

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    1. it usually is fun for family and friends but the government was also looking for something to draw international tourists

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  8. Wow!!! That is absolutely beautiful!! Love the different light displays. Definitely a plus for being free and great for the whole family

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  9. This is beautiful! Thank you for sharing this with us! I would love to attend there some time in the future! And thank you for the stunning pictures, it made me feel like I was there! Great description by the way!

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  10. What a beautiful light show! I've never seen anything like this. I would love to see it.

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  11. Wow these photos are amazing! Thank you so much for sharing, definitely want to visit this Mosque

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    1. even without the light show, the mosque is actually pretty too

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  12. Omg just stunning photos!!! This festival looks like it would be super neat to attend!!!!

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  13. That must look so much beautiful in person! I wish I could see it one of these days.

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  14. Looks like such an awesome festival to go to! I would love to go!!

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  15. This looks amazing! Such a nice way to have a celebration - I love light shows, and this one looks very peaceful and quiet - around here the light shows are often related to fireworks, and I just can't handle all the noise. This looks beautiful!

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    1. the light shows are more of laser lights on structures and light arts

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  16. Wow what a beautiful festival! I've never heard of this before but I know my family would love to see this! So pretty!

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  17. This is so beautiful! The lights are really awesome too!

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