Trust happens after 7pm

By day, LEAP is kinetic. 

Ideas move fast and meetings stack back-to-back. Founders pitch in tight windows of time, and exhibitors roll demo loops on repeat. Investors step into matchmaking sessions with intent, and speakers share mind-bending knowledge all day long. The energy is electric – and carefully structured. 

Then once the sun drops behind Riyadh’s skyline, our team creates something special. There’s less structure, and the energy is softer – LEAP Nights begin, and with them comes a different kind of exchange. 

It’s more about stories and wonder than business cards. But never underestimate the value of that. Because trust (which drives every partnership, every investment, every collaboration) builds from stories and shared experience – in moments where people are just being people. 

The Unknown Escape Game 

When you step inside an escape room, titles don’t mean anything anymore. The CEO of a global tech giant can work side-by-side with an early-stage entrepreneur, and neither one of them thinks about hierarchies at all. 

The Unknown Escape Game experience during LEAP Nights drops teams into a cinematic mystery. The lights dim and the clock starts – and you have to solve a puzzle. When the obvious solution doesn’t work, someone suggests a different angle. Someone else spots a detail everyone missed.

In that compressed, playful pressure, you see how people really think.

You notice who listens before speaking, and who keeps calm; who reframes the problem instead of forcing it. For founders, it’s a glimpse of how they navigate uncertainty. For investors and partners, it’s a chance to observe instinct rather than polish. For exhibitors, it’s collaboration without a sales objective attached.

It’s about pattern recognition. And sometimes the most important patterns only surface when the pitch deck is nowhere in sight. 

Walking side by side: Al-Amariya Hike and Al Manjoor Trail

Conversations change when you’re walking.

In his book Ways of Walking, anthropologist Tim Ingold wrote: 

“Our principal contention is that walking is a profoundly social activity: that in their timings, rhythms and inflections, the feet respond as much as does the voice to the presence and activity of others.”

On the trails of Al-Amariya or along the dramatic cliffs of Al Manjoor Trail (often called the ‘edge of the world’), chats happen at the pace of your footsteps. There’s no stage to perform from or screen between you; just open sky and the rhythm of shared movement.

And in these stretches of desert silence, you start to discuss the bigger questions. You share the real reasons you started your company, and what success might really look like; you tell each other about your worries and ambitions for the coming years. 

For international visitors, these hikes also offer context. LEAP is in Riyadh for a reason; it’s a city in motion, rooted in deep history and expanding with extraordinary speed. Experiencing the landscape (literal and cultural) adds texture to every conversation back at the exhibition floor the next morning.

Building anything worthwhile takes endurance. A long walk reminds you of that – and helps you enjoy the journey too. 

Play reveals character: 6Meem Laser Tag

Then there are the moments that are just a lot of fun (though even the fun can be surprisingly revealing). 

At 6Meem’s tactical laser tag experience, strategy becomes visible. Teams plan quickly and adapt when a move fails. They communicate under pressure; they laugh. And of course, sometimes they misjudge.

You learn who steps forward instinctively and who prefers to read the field before acting. You see collaboration in front of your eyes, unfiltered.

It’s easy to underestimate play, but shared adrenaline has a way of accelerating connection. A founder and a potential partner who have just navigated a fast-paced game together return to business conversation with a different level of familiarity – it’s less transactional, and much more comfortable. 

A city that opens up

Beyond the games and the trails, LEAP Nights invite visitors into Riyadh itself – into its heritage, its markets, its architecture, its desert skies. The city becomes part of the dialogue.

We think that’s important – because LEAP has always been about more than a conference agenda. It’s about building an ecosystem that feels lived-in. When visitors, exhibitors, founders, investors and partners step outside the venue together, they step into shared context. 

Trust is built like that: slowly, through moments of authenticity.

If the daytime programme is the engine of LEAP week, then LEAP Nights is the current that runs quietly beneath it. One powers the ideas, and the other powers the relationships.

And when morning comes, the conversations you resume in the Investor Lounge, the Matchmaking Zone or next to the Rocket Fuel stage are a little deeper. 

Planning your LEAP week? Make space for both. Spend the day immersed in the future of tech – and let the evening build the trust that will carry it forward.

Learn more about LEAP Nights