The postponement comes after the glider crash of HH Sheikh Ahmed Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Chairman of the Board of Trustees of Zayed Foundation for Charitable and Humanitarian and Managing Director of the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, in Morocco last Friday and the continuing search for him.

The Postponement also includes all related events such as Million’s Poet concerts scheduled for Friday.

Colombian musical group CIMARRON concert scheduled for 1 April as part of year- long program World Stage was postponed too.

Mohammed Khalaf Al Mazrouei, Director General of ADACH, commented ‘we hope rescuers succeed in their mission to find Sheikh Ahmed and brings him back home safe’ Sultan Al Amimi, Director of the Poetry Academy said ‘the public voting via SMS and online on the five finalist poets in the competition will be stopped as decided this Wednesday evening March 31 after one hour of the usual timing of broadcasting the show every week. Precisely at 11:30 pm UAE local time the voting ends’

The show, sponsored and produced by Abu Dhabi Authority for Culture and Heritage, presents 48 poets, carefully selected by a panel of experts on Nabati poetry (dialect poetry), from thousands of applicants after a six-week tour of the Arabian Gulf countries with contestants from all over the Arab world. The poets will battle it out, seeking to impress the jury and the audience with their poetic skills, in the hope of making it through to the grand final.

Last week five finalist poets from Saudi Arabia and Kuwait stood before the jury panel to prove their poetical ability by delivering poems on topics chosen the week before.

In this phase poets are given a total points of 60 by the jury panel, 30 points were given last week and the rest 30 points will given in the final episode, while 40 points are given by the public voting. Poet with highest points will be awarded the first prize of UAD 5 million ($1,362,000) in the last episode of the competition on 7 April 2010.

The jury panels give last week the highest points to the only finalist poetess Hissa Helal from Saudi Arabia and Kuwaiti poet Sultan Al Asaimar. Each gained 28 points out of 30. Poet Fallah Al Moragi from Kuwait was given 27 points. Poets Jazaa Al Boqami from Saudi Arabia and Nasser Al Ajmi from Kuwait were given 26 points each.