MrBeast Unleashes ‘Beast Land’ in Saudi Arabia’s Entertainment Boom
Now add MrBeast – the most-watched YouTuber on the planet – to the list of global names being pulled into Saudi Arabia’s new entertainment era.
This month, the 27-year-old creator (real name Jimmy Donaldson) hit 100 billion views across his channels and marked the milestone not with another video drop, but with a real-world spectacle: Beast Land, a pop-up theme park in Riyadh inspired by his famously extreme challenge videos.
“It’s probably one of the best days of my life,” he told Reuters ahead of opening night – and you can feel that energy all over the project.
What is Beast Land, exactly?
Think YouTube challenge video meets sci-fi game show, dropped into the middle of Riyadh Season.
Beast Land is a 45-day temporary theme park running from 13 November to 27 December 2025, built across roughly 188,000 square metres on Riyadh’s entertainment circuit near Boulevard City and Boulevard World.
Instead of just coasters and cotton candy, visitors step into:
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Obstacle-course and endurance challenges straight out of a MrBeast video – last-one-standing games, reaction tests, trap-door style drops onto cushioned pits, and elimination rounds that play out in real time.
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A full ride line-up (including coasters and spinning rides) to keep the “theme park” side legit.
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A huge “prize wall” and daily cash rewards for those who make it through the challenges – a physical extension of his online persona as the guy who gives away eye-watering sums of money.
Lit in neon blues and purples, Beast Land looks like a MrBeast thumbnail brought to life: loud, playful, slightly intimidating – and engineered for TikTok.
Why MrBeast Beast Land Saudi Arabia makes strategic sense
For Niche readers, the obvious question is: why Riyadh?
Donaldson says around 70% of his audience lives outside the U.S., with a huge and very online fanbase across the Middle East. Beast Land is his way of meeting them where they are.
Saudi Arabia, meanwhile, offers two crucial things:
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Space and infrastructure – purpose-built backlots and indoor venues where he can film a full “season” of new challenge videos at the scale his brand demands.
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A government-backed push to bring global IP into the kingdom as part of Vision 2030, which aims to diversify the economy away from oil and fast-track a new entertainment identity.
In that context, “MrBeast Beast Land Saudi Arabia” becomes more than a quirky pop-up: it’s a test case for how creator-led brands can plug directly into state-backed mega-events.
Riyadh Season: from no cinemas to global playground
A decade ago, Saudi Arabia was still known for banned cinemas and strict limits on concerts. Many young Saudis grew up with almost no public spaces to hang out, beyond malls and restaurants.
Fast-forward to 2025:
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Riyadh Season has turned the capital into a near year-round festival, with boxing cards, slap-fighting competitions, EDM nights, e-sports, football friendlies and pop concerts on constant rotation.
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Global stars like Cristiano Ronaldo have signed eye-watering deals with Saudi clubs, and fashion/celebrity names from Naomi Campbell to Sofia Vergara are regulars on the red carpet circuit.
Beast Land slots neatly into that ecosystem: a creator-economy attraction built for families, teenagers and young adults who grew up watching MrBeast on their phones and now get to step inside his world – for one season only.
For Saudi’s entertainment planners, it’s a signal to other digital giants: bring your IP, we’ll build the playground.
Inside the experience: from screen to “scream”
The design language of Beast Land is pure MrBeast:
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Challenges that look simple, but are psychologically brutal – like standing on a platform waiting for a button to light up, knowing that the slowest hand drops through a trap door.
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Short, high-intensity rounds that echo YouTube’s attention economy – everything is built for moments, not long queues and meandering storylines.
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Constant win/lose narratives – visible scoreboards, eliminations, prize triggers – engineered to be as watchable as they are playable.
Families and teens have been packing the park from day one, many in MrBeast merch, phones raised. The images circulating online show what you’d expect:screaming drop-rides, hectic obstacle runs, and the creator himself doing an exhausting press carousel of selfies, interviews and crowd interactions.
In interviews, Donaldson keeps framing it in simple terms:
“I just really wanted to do something fun for our fans who live around here.”
Fun, yes. But also a very sophisticated brand and business experiment.
What Beast Land tells us about the future of the creator economy
From a Niche Magazine UK perspective, Beast Land is interesting because it sits at the intersection of:
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IP extension – taking a YouTube format and turning it into a real-world experience, much like how Netflix and Disney are building pop-ups, exhibitions and live shows around their hits.
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Soft-power entertainment strategy – Saudi Arabia leveraging creator culture in the same way it has used sport, fashion and film premieres to reposition itself as a global lifestyle destination.
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New tourism hooks – 45-day, FOMO-driven pop-ups that give travellers a very specific reason – and deadline – to book Riyadh over Dubai, Doha or Abu Dhabi this winter.
It also hints at where creator-brand collaborations could go next:
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Imagine K-pop fandom parks, podcast-led mystery mansions, fashion-house game zones where you physically play the campaigns you see online.
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For destination markets, partnering with a creator who can guarantee hundreds of millions of impressions can be more powerful than signing yet another legacy act.
MrBeast is effectively stress-testing that model for everyone else.
For UK readers: why this matters beyond Riyadh
You don’t have to be booking flights to Saudi to feel the impact of Beast Land.
For UK brands, agencies and investors, this is a reminder that:
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Entertainment IP no longer lives in one medium – a successful series, channel or character is now expected to appear as merch, games, live experiences and physical spaces.
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The most bankable “talent” might be a creator, not a studio – MrBeast’s 450m-plus subscribers translate into a global, trackable fanbase that traditional celebrity often can’t match.
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Gulf markets are setting the pace on big-ticket, high-concept pop-ups – from boxing mega-cards and F1 to this neon challenge park.
For MrBeast’s fans in the region, though, it’s simpler: for six weeks, the most famous YouTube channel on earth isn’t just something you watch. It’s somewhere you can literally walk into.
And for Saudi Arabia, Beast Land is another neon sign flashing above Riyadh Season that says:
Welcome to the new entertainment map – creators included.
