I just returned home to Dubai from Sharqiah Season, where for the better part of a month, I’ve watched the people of the Eastern Province having a blast.

Oh sure, I also saw Pitbull and Akon in concert, watched Cirque Eloize perform, witnessed the Red Bull Air Race Demo, heard Cuba Gooding Jr. speak and visited more than a few festivals, over the course of two long weekends.

But it was the audiences who moved me the most, because I got to see a side to Saudi Arabia that the world doesn’t. This is not to detract from the massive effort it must have taken organizers to put on more than 80 events over 17 days in nine fairly spread-out cities, setting up sound stages, flying in performers from all over the world, co-ordinating an army of volunteers and coping with stormy weather.

I don’t want to sound ungrateful when I say I’ve seen it all before, but after a decade of covering such events in the UAE, I had begun to take a weekend full of events for granted. But to witness a place experiencing such a happening for the first time? Priceless.

It hit me the first night, when I went to see the opening performance of “Skyline,” by the Canadian circus troupe Cirque Eloize. The seats were packed with families who had come with toddlers. I wondered whether they’d be able to sit still through the incredibly artistic acrobatic and dance performance.

They sat transfixed. The toddler in front of me stood in his seat for the entire show, pointing at the stage as if to say “look.” You don’t get this everywhere in the Gulf, where audiences wander in and out of movie theaters as if they’re waiting rooms, talking on their mobile phones. Not in Sharqiah.

During my time there, I saw women in niqabs swaying to the music of ABBA and mingling with circus performers. Families having picnics spread out on Oriental carpets on the grass near the Corniche. Young men and women with their hands in the air, singing along with Pitbull: “Give me everything tonight, for all we know, we might not get tomorrow.”

That pretty much captures it: Sharqiah Season gave us a bit of everything. And with 10 more Saudi Seasons to go this year, the Kingdom’s set to get a lot more.

Mo Gannon is a senior editor at the Arab News bureau in Dubai.