Beirut To Break The Record For World’s Longest Continuing Party At 56 Hours

At a time when the biggest plates of hummus and biggest lemonade reserves aren’t enough, Beirut seems set to do what Beirut does best, and that’s throw the biggest party out there – literally this time.

In 2 weeks, between August 28th at 7PM and the dawn of August 30th, and under the patronage of Lebanon’s Ministry of Tourism, Lebanon will try to break the Guinness World Record for longest continuous party, at 56 hours. The previous record was held by Dublin, Ireland and was set at 54 hours.

The attempt to break the world record will take place at Nurai, which is located in Monot. In order to accomplish this task, Guinness will be monitoring the place for the set duration of time to make sure it’s continuously in “party” mode.

To help accomplish the task at hand, a bunch of artists, live bands, singers and DJs will be continuously performing for the duration of the party. The Ministry of Tourism will also be providing transportation to and from the site of the event.

I may not be there to participate and I sure am not the go-to person for any partying-related advice (God forbid), and I may also hate the notion of Beirut being synonymous with parties all the time but that has become as part of the city’s identity as its other more traditional landmarks. Is it a bad thing? Perhaps when it’s blinding the Lebanese masses from further critical thought of their own societies as long as Beirut is featured on some list somewhere as a Phoenix rising from the ashes party town.

The world record breaking attempt may not fix the horribly broken sectors that are maiming this country, but it is a good step from the Ministry of Tourism to further boost Beirut’s image as a go-to destination for party goers of the world, especially given that Lebanon hosted one of Tomorrowland’s live events a few weeks ago in July.

It’s especially beneficial at a time when Lebanon’s summer tourism season is seeing a boost with the political calm the country is experiencing and with Arab Gulf citizens slowly but surely returning to their habits of visiting the country to spend their summer vacations. Such an event will also contribute to setting Beirut apart from other cities in the Middle East when it comes to such lifestyle aspects, and – at least momentarily – help airbrush the country’s image, if only for those who are still susceptible to that.

Either way, I hope the event is a success. I hope those who do attend have a good time, and I sure hope the event’s organization is at the needed level for such a massive undertaking.

H/t Adeela.

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4 thoughts on “Beirut To Break The Record For World’s Longest Continuing Party At 56 Hours”

  1. LOL… As one of the *many* diaspora Lebanese who was born & lives out of the country (as w/ my father) I’ll leave it to the true Lebanese on the ground there to know wether this is a good or bad thing. (Or ‘neither’ thing).

    However if anyone wants my very limited diaspora opinion: On the one hand I’m tired of people in the States — not Lebanese/not ‘Arab’ — saying ‘Lebanon is the only Arab country where one can see a girl wearing short shorts skating down the street’ (LOL… Where did this trope start?!). And of course the ‘Paris of the East’ trope. (I tell people when they say that: “Paris is the Lebanon of the West.”… We gave them their glass & silks & parfum & linen underclothes etc…). Also the pretentious DJ/hedonistic dancing tropes can be embarrassing in the diaspora when non-Lebanese know so little about us. I find it irritating when we are equated with being *acceptable* only because we are seen as supposedly more ‘western’. (Especially — at the risk of repeating myself — when we gave ‘the West’ so much of what is considered ‘western’!).

    On the other hand I may be a walking Lebanese stereotype. I’m a goldsmith & worked in fashion in NYC for years & was part of the music/dj/art/design scene there & my Lebanese dad was a prominent person in the music industry. This entailed being dragged to a lot of shows by my dad as a kid & later on being forced to endure a lot of clubs/clubbing. (Now I can be found reading more again & nearly monastic).

    So there you go… It’s very funny though…

    Elie… I don’t want to derail your post & thread Habibi but I would love it if you would write the occasional post on your host country in which I reside. Especially since we have just had racist neo-Nazis modelling themselves after 1930s Brownshirts who w/ torches & shields came upon a university town from all over the country; one of whom ran over peaceful protesters w/ a car — killing Heather Heyer.

    Three kisses from the Shore just north of New York City. Hope you are safe & well fed & learning a lot here! xxx

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  2. I can almost imagine Anthony Bourdain’s ancient head on my screen with the world’s biggest party running in the background as he muses and philosophises nonsensically about how Beirut has gone from Hezbollah to Ibiza since his last visit etc. Insert wanky leb artist type with dirty hair and chinos who then takes Bourdain to a ‘less fortunate’ part of the country aka the refugee camps…oh my.

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