▶ Watch the film · Ikmah After Dark · Full Show
▶ Official Trailer
Mountain Projection Mapping · Ancient Kingdoms Festival 2023
A mountain, alive with light.
For the Ancient Kingdoms Festival 2023, Plan A transformed the sacred gorge of Ikmah into a living canvas — 27 laser projectors painting 33,600 m² of UNESCO-listed rock face with 2,500 years of history, brought back to life in light.
Scroll ↓
▶ Watch the film · Ikmah After Dark · Full Show
▶ Official Trailer
The Project
Plan A was honoured to bring Jebel Iqmaa to life as part of the Ancient Kingdoms Festival's flagship "Ikmah After Dark" experience. The Ikmah gorge — a site inscribed on UNESCO's Memory of the World register in May 2023 — became the stage for the largest projection mapping experience ever mounted on a natural rock formation in Saudi Arabia.
Guests entered after dark, guided along a 300m torchlit pathway into the gorge. Live carving workshops, expert-led heritage walks, and then — the finale: the mountain itself came alive, its ancient Dadanitic, Lihyanite, Aramaic, Thamudic and Minaic inscriptions glowing across 33,600 square metres of rock face.
N° 01 / 03
Ancient glyphs, mythological figures and petroglyphs from the Ikmah inscription field — mapped frame-perfect onto the uneven natural rock, breathing 2,500 years of history back into the stone.
N° 02 / 03
Jebel Iqmaa's Ikmah gorge carries over 500 inscriptions in five ancient scripts — a UNESCO Memory of the World site. Every visual in the show was drawn directly from the glyphs and petroglyphs carved into these walls over the first millennium BCE.
N° 03 / 03
Twenty-seven Panasonic laser projectors. A 285m throw distance. 33,600 square metres of natural rock face. The gorge at Ikmah is one of the largest natural projection canvases ever used — and every surface was mapped.
The Impact
"A breathtaking fusion of technology and heritage — the ancient gorge of Ikmah transformed into a living canvas of light and history."
— Arab News"A landmark moment in Saudi cultural programming — the mountain itself became the storyteller."
— Royal Commission for AlUla"A compelling story celebrating the cultural heritage and artistic richness of AlUla — ancient inscriptions glowing back to life."
— AlUla MomentsThe Details
Let's build
From a UNESCO inscription field to a 33,600 m² canvas of light.
Bring us the site — we'll wrap it in history.
