The good news is that it’s a yes from the gigantic, fire-breathing spider. It is hard, after all, to imagine a World Cup without its finest tradition: 50 tons of decommissioned crane arranged into the shape of a monstrous arachnid, pumped full of highly flammable fuel and then stocked with hopefully less flammable DJs.
The spider will form the centerpiece of one of the cultural highlights of this winter’s World Cup in Qatar: a monthlong electronic music festival called the Arcadia Spectacular, staged just south of Doha and boasting what the promotional material calls an “electrifying atmosphere, extraordinary sculpted stages and the most immersive shows on earth.”
The idea has been modeled, fairly transparently, on England’s Glastonbury Festival — the spider itself has been a regular feature there for a decade — and, although it was only announced at a relatively late stage in preparations for the World Cup, organizers expect it to draw about 200,000 fans. Each and every one of them should be warned: They will, it turns out, be “mesmerized late into the night.”
The spider, though, will not be alone, which presumably can be a problem when you are a nightmarish metallic behemoth.
The Arcadia Spectacular is not the only music festival to be tacked on to Qatar 2022. There will be another at Al Wakrah, hosted by a company called MDLBEAST: You can tell it will be cutting-edge, because it’s in block capital letters and also has done away with some of its vowels, the most old-fashioned type of letter.
Soccer Football – FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 – Group A – Qatar v Ecuador – Al Bayt Stadium, Al Khor, Qatar – November 20, 2022 General view during the opening ceremony REUTERS/Fabrizio Bensch TPX IMAGES OF THE DAY
Those events, though, form only a part of the entertainment tapestry on offer to fans over the course of the tournament. There is Al Maha Island, with its ice-skating rink, its circus and its theme park; Lusail, the first city built for a World Cup, where the central boulevard will feature “vehicle parades” and futuristic light shows; the Doha Corniche, 4 miles of roving street performers and “carnival atmosphere”; and, of course, the beach clubs, the fan park and, around every stadium for every game, the catchily named “Last Mile Cultural Activation.”
Qatar, in other words, has been as good as its word: It promised it would put on a show, and it has delivered. No expense has been spared. No stone has been left unturned. Its plans for what might be termed the tournament experience are grand, and ambitious, and spectacular.
It is just a shame that they are not, in any way, reflective of what fans want or need, and that they so betray such a fundamental misunderstanding — on the part of both the local organizers and, more damningly, FIFA itself — of what it is that makes a World Cup special.
Soccer Football – FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 – Group A – Qatar v Ecuador – Al Bayt Stadium, Al Khor, Qatar – November 20, 2022 General view inside the stadium during the opening ceremony REUTERS/Amr Abdallah Dalsh TPX IMAGES OF THE DAY
It is not the soccer that makes the World Cup, not really. There are times that the games are breathtaking and nail-biting and heartbreaking, of course, when what happens on the field is etched on to the collective memory like a bright, lasting tattoo or an aching scar. But more often, it is something more ethereal. The World Cup, at heart, is a feeling.
There are many reasons to criticize the idea of a World Cup in Qatar. First and foremost, there are the ongoing concerns about human rights, the queasy amorality of a tournament built by and on indentured labor. There is the troubling uncertainty, too, over quite how welcome gay fans might be, over whether this truly will be a tournament for everyone.
And there is the cost. The tournament’s organizers insist that Qatar has a “comfortable inventory for fans”: There will, they say, be “up to” 130,000 rooms to house fans every night of the tournament. There is “something to suit everyone,” too, with options ranging from hotels to villas and apartments and on to cruise ships, luxury tents, simple cabins and even camper vans. The cheapest option is “as low as $80 per room per night,” a spokesperson for the Supreme Committee for Delivery and Legacy said.
There are, currently, apartments available for $102 per person, per night, for certain dates, although they come with a warning that availability is running low. Miss out on them and the price creeps up quickly. Other options start at $300 a night. A luxury tent goes for more than $400. A berth on a cruise ship starts at about $500. Hotels can stretch into the thousands of dollars for a single night.
This is the World Cup as Qatar envisages it, and seemingly as FIFA does, too: a premium product, a lifestyle experience that can be acquired at a certain price point, a playground for the corporate class, the itinerant rich, the luxury traveler. It is an event designed by consultants, for consultants, the sort of place in which a gigantic, fire-breathing spider is hired to disguise in spectacle the absence of sensation.
And this World Cup will, sadly, be poorer for it. A carnival atmosphere is not something that can be commanded into existence. It is not possible to take all of the stages and sets and logistics of Glastonbury and simply re-create them somewhere else, just as it is not possible to take the organic, authentic melting of thousands of fans from around the world and replace it with a series of “cultural events” and “sponsor activations.”
What makes the World Cup, what always makes the World Cup, are the people. Not the ones on the field, not even the ones in the stands, but the ones who come just to be there, just to sample it, to add color and sound and joy.
It is hard not to worry that many of those fans will have been priced out of Qatar, or excluded by virtue of not being allowed into the country without a ticket for a game, and that with them the feeling will change, turning the tournament into an ersatz version of itself, a tribute to all the things money can buy — including a flame-throwing spider — and all of the things that it cannot.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
