Qtel’s Free Family Fun Festival attracted more than 50,000 visitors this weekend, with people from across Qatar flocking to the event. The event featured a wide range of activities designed to entertain family members of all ages, including slides, inflatable rides and a range of games. The visitors were universally positive in their response, particularly since entry to the event was free. The festival was held over last Thursday, Friday and Saturday at Aspire Park. Confirming that the total number of visitors exceeded 50,000, Waleed Al Sayed, Executive Director, Customer Service, Qtel, noted that a huge volume of free gifts and toys were distributed to children during the festival. “We are happy with the diverse number of activities and games in the Family Fun Festival, and I am sure our guests enjoyed the event, especially with the fabulous weather we saw over the weekend,” said Al Sayed. The festival was designed by Qtel as a ‘Thank you’ gesture to its customers, who have supported the launch of the new Concept Stores across Qatar, which have generated a good response among the public. Adel Al Mutawa, Executive Director, Group Communications, Qtel, said: “Qtel has developed its corporate social responsibility strategy to ensure that we are supporting social welfare initiatives like the Free Family Fun Festival, which brings a lot of joy and entertainment to families across Qatar. Providing facilities for families is one of the many ways that Qtel looks to make a difference for the diverse communities that we serve.” Al Sayed described Qtel’s plans to develop its Concept Stores to operate as both community resources and high-end service centres. He said: “Qtel is deploying the resources of some of the world’s leading developers of service centres in the development of our new Concept Stores, and combining that with our unmatched understanding of the needs of the people of Qatar. Our aim is that through opening a network of stores across the country we will provide easy access and high levels of service to people everywhere. The Concept Stores will enable customers to fully understand the latest innovations in technology, communications and services, and provide the opportunity for customers to test products and services. To that end, Qtel has made a number of services available through the Concept Stores for customers to test before subscribing to them. Much of the feedback from these test sessions has been woven into Qtel’s development strategy for new products and services. Al Sayed also pointed to the fact that the Concepts Stores are increasingly being used as a children’s activity arena, so that visiting children can be entertained with a range of child-friendly technologies while their parents pay bills or shop for the latest devices. To build upon this opportunity, Qtel has also incorporated a range of fun and informative ‘Edutainment” options in the stores, so that children can learn more about Qatar, including its geography and historic locations, and about world capitals and culture, through screens and interactive games. Al Sayed stated that Qtel offered its customers a wide range of products and services across fixed, mobile, broadband, and Mozaic TV+ areas. The Concept Stores were designed to introduce these services to customers in a lively and interactive way. The Free Family Fun Festival was another way of introducing these fantastic resources to the community. He said several ideas were discussed, but finally it was decided to hold a Family Fun Festival at Aspire Park, which has wide open spaces that allow families to take part in outdoor activities. To make customers more familiar with the new Concept Stores, tickets to attend the festival were distributed at these centres. Among the highlights of the festival were performances by Peplum and Othello, the comic duo, and Comic Acrobats, three times a day. Qtel’s Family Fun Festival also offered international games, including gladiator jousting, bouncy boxing, sumo wrestling, bungee run, bungee basketball and an electronic penalty shootout. There were also a wide range of slides, inflatable activity areas and games for children of all ages to enjoy. Qtel teams worked throughout the festival to lay down inflatable slides and other games for visitors to enjoy, as well as preparing a wide area for families to relax and watch the activities. Members of the public admired the shows and the organisation of the festival, which suited people of all age categories and praised Qtel’s way of managing and running the event. Ahmad Al Marri said Qtel brought joy to the hearts of his family members with the range of breath-taking shows, especially the clown’s performance, which entertained children with comedy. The performer, who was brought to Qatar specifically for the Festival, received rapturous applause at every showing. Al Marri pointed out that Qtel was successful in organising this festival, but he said other government and private sector organisations should provide support to make such festivals a success. Salem Al Marri, on the other hand, said the festival was a great social occasion and the organization was of a high standard. He said more events of this sort should be offered to families on weekends. Hasan Yazidi commended the festival and said that it was enough to see the joy in the children’s eyes to tell how successful it was. He said that events should be carefully selected to suit Arab families and activities of educational nature should be provided. He said more national companies should sponsor similar events. Abdel Hadi Al Awi was very happy to be able to participate in the activities Qtel at the Family Fun Festival. “Children spend too much time watching events like these on satellite channels, but thanks to Qtel, my family was able to actively take part in this special occasion. We thank Qtel for this effort and asked that it be held on more occasions.” Mohammd Awad thanked Qtel for organising the event, stressing the point that Qtel was a Qatari company that was eager to play a social role and help the community through activities that satisfy the public. He suggested that such activities should be mentioned on Qtel calendar of events. Rebhi Bilal said he was happy to participate in the festival, where the company had succeeded in bringing together families of different nationalities and children from different age groups. Abdul Rahman Ismail said Qtel had wowed the public with the festival, and called upon the company to hold more such events, which provide a good break from the routine for families. Mohammad Kareem thanked Qtel for hosting the festival and for the large number of gifts and prizes it gave away. Haitham Bokesh expressed his family’s happiness on attending the festival and hoped that Qtel would hold more events of this sort. Mohammed Al Sadany, Momen Abdul Fattah, Ashraf Badr and Waleed Al Bakry all expressed their satisfaction with the event, and wished they had attended it on all three days. They loved the different shows and performances and thanked Qtel for the gifts and prizes they won. All of them agreed that the festival was a great occasion for their families and children to have fun and enjoy a great day out. http://thepeninsulaqatar.com/Display_news.asp?section=Local_News&subsection=Qatar+News&month=April2009&file=Local_News2009042815551.xml

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