Winter is for both hibernation and celebration. While it's a great time to relax and take it easy, it's also a busy time of year for shopping and visiting friends and relatives, making winter trips to other countries (especially if you're an expat) and attending parties, ice rinks and cosy winter markets. It's also an ideal time to go to a concert or a music festival!
Once Christmas is over, it's business as usual - holidays come to an abrupt end, workers go back to work, students return to their studies and kids go back to school. But it's not all doom and gloom - in the Netherlands, there is a seriously great selection of festivals to go to, in order to quell those post-Christmas blues!
Here are some of the festivals to brighten up the rest of your winter days:
The Eurosonic Noorderslag Festival is a key platform for European music, helping new acts break into the international live music scene. Aside from being an exciting event for visitors, Eurosonic also hosts Europe’s most important live music industry conference with panels, keynote speeches and award shows.
Anarchy Art Fest is, as the name suggests, an anarchistic, unorthodox, offbeat festival of art and music, featuring “expressions that are rough around the edges, do not care for aesthetics and prefer depth”.
Black Denim Festival in the Netherlands is a day-long celebration of all kinds of punk and rock music at the renowned music venue Baroeg in Rotterdam. Whether it's D-beat, hardcore, gravel or crust, Black Denim Festival believes that punk is timeless and this is evident from the festival line-up.
The Snowball Festival returns to Utrecht with a day full of techno tunes, winter drinks and real snow during this "apres-ski-themed party in the park"! There's even a specific dress code at Snowball festival: put on your ski suit and get ready for the event of the season!
The holidays may be over and the Dutch weather still grim and cold, but that doesn't mean that it's not the ideal time to have some fun and dance the day away! Get a load of the mulled wine, stalls selling Dutch snacks and decorated stages and tents where musical gatherings sweep you off your feet at Overwinteren Festival!
It’s as though the Netherlands were ready for the yearly festival season to start – many music fans feel nostalgic, reminiscing about music festival season last summer. But why not get into festival mode in January and February? Why should we wait for another season? Get your festival tickets and have a great winter!
Thumb photo: Bart Heemskerk, courtesy of Eurosonic Noorderslag