The falcon economy opened its season on Thursday at Malham, north of Riyadh, on two floors at once. The International Saudi Falcons and Hunting Exhibition began a ten-day run at the Riyadh Exhibition and Convention Center, and the National Center for Falcons opened its seventh annual auction of wild-trapped peregrines at its headquarters, a sale that runs through November 30. Both are productions of the same center, and together they make the first days of October the densest stretch of the Kingdom’s falconry calendar.
This year’s exhibition runs under the theme A Destination for Everyone across 197,000 square meters, open daily from 2 p.m. to 11 p.m. through October 10, with 21 events spanning falconry, hunting, shooting sports, safari and outdoor recreation alongside workshops and heritage programming. The Melwah race, the competition centerpiece, runs October 4 to 9 in twelve heats split evenly between amateur and professional falcon owners, with a prize pool of SR723,000 paid to the top five finishers in each heat.
The exhibition has grown into a measurable seasonal market. Last year’s edition drew more than 700,000 visitors and produced over SR91 million in sales of equipment, expedition vehicles and outdoor supplies, by the organizers’ count. For the makers of falconry gear and desert kit, ten days at Malham now function as the trade’s annual order book, which is why the center programs the exhibition as much for outfitters and workshops as for spectators.
The auction floor deals in scarcer goods. The center’s sale handles only migratory juvenile peregrines trapped inside the Kingdom under its licensing system, and its six editions since 2020 have moved SR45.3 million across 455 birds. The direction of the series is established: 102 falcons sold in the first edition and 40 in last year’s, while the average price per bird climbed from roughly SR98,000 to about SR160,000. A capped, documented wild channel operating beside a much larger captive-bred trade is the center’s design, and the premium the wild birds command is the design working.
The opening weeks will put numbers on three questions. Whether hammer prices extend the climb past last year’s SR160,000 average. Whether participation recovers from last year’s 119 falconers, a count that fell by more than half from 2023 and could read either as tighter licensing or as a leaner passage season. And whether the exhibition’s gate and sales clear last year’s 700,000 visitors and SR91 million. Each number grades a different part of the center’s model: the auction tests the premium, the license count tests the supply chain, and the gate tests the audience.
By the time the auction closes at the end of November, the season will have produced its own accounting of prices, participants and sales, and the winter calendar of hunting trips, festivals and competition purses will take over from there. That ledger, published bird by bird and year by year, is what lets a heritage pursuit be managed like the economic sector it has become.