Photo Credit: Joy Awards 2026
The Joy Awards, Saudi Arabia’s answer to the Grammy Awards, have been canceled amid financial strain on the country’s entertainment sector.
Saudi Arabia’s Joy Awards, its annual Grammy-like event held in January, has been canceled this year amid financial strain and the Iran war impacting the country’s entertainment sector. The Joy Awards have served as the most anticipated and star-studded event in the country’s annual events calendar. The 2026 edition featured Western acts like Katy Perry and Robbie Williams.
According to sources close to the matter, budget cuts were already significantly affecting Saudi Arabia’s local economy before the Iran war. Riyadh’s reprioritized spending prevented Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman from furthering his goal of transforming the country into a tourism destination and global events hub. The Saudi-backed war with Iran has only exacerbated the challenges facing the country’s entertainment sector.
“The war and its wider ripple effects are inevitably prompting Gulf states to reassess spending priorities,” Dubai-based media consultant Mazen Hayek told Reuters.
Other entertainment events in the region that have been postponed this year include the Red Sea Film Festival, which was pushed back to 2027, and Soundstorm, a “city-sized” desert rave that would have been held in December. Organizers did not provide a reason for Soundstorm’s cancelation but promised it would return next year.
But the Joy Awards are also the latest major event or project to be delayed in Riyadh alone over the past year. They join two significant building plans: the 100-mile steel and glass tower dubbed The Line and a $50 billion steel and metal skyscraper called The Cube. Government funding has similarly been scaled back or withdrawn altogether from ventures like LIV Golf and the NEOM Stadium.
“It’s not simply a question of whether governments have the financial capacity to fund such initiatives. Some of these events were also conceived as instruments of international visibility, soft power, and influence,” Hayek explained. “In the current environment, however, governments may be weighing those objectives against other national priorities.”
Meanwhile, events that focus on driving investment into Saudi Arabia, including the Future Investment Initiative (FII) at the end of this month, will go ahead as planned. Industry insiders say that projects that bolster the Saudi economy will continue being prioritized, which does not include “anything that is singing and dancing and having a good time.”
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