Cotton candy in your left hand, beer in your right hand. And dance. For example, the Desperado Roadshow Festival beckons thousands of young people to the Tilburg fair every year. They might not have gone otherwise. By making the fair look more and more like a festival, young people from the rest of the Netherlands must also be enticed.
Ruud Lemmen is the one who has to do that. He is head of programming at pop stage 013 and programmer of the hip-hop festival Woohah! So he knows how to throw a party. Lemmen: ”If there is more to do around the fair, there is also a chance that people from further away will come to Tilburg. We would like that. It’s a big event. Pink Monday is a good example, which is known nationally. But the fair as a whole could get a boost again.”
Lemmen knows that a lot is already being organized around the fair in other parts of Tilburg. That could be a bit more famous. And the city center has grown considerably in recent years with the addition of the pimped Piushaven and the Spoorzone. Lemmen: “I come from Tilburg myself and I regularly sit on a terrace at the Piushaven. From now on, those areas will also be part of the city center, so people expect that there will also be something to benefit from the fair. Because it is just outside the attraction crowds, it offers space to hold completely different events.”
”For example, I am thinking of a very large beach on the Piushaven.”
Lemmen gives his imagination free rein: ”For example, I am thinking of a very large beach promenade on the Piushaven with music and entertainment every evening. How many kilos of sand do you need for that? And an outdoor film program. I’m just mentioning something. The Spoorpark can host performances by great artists. I hope things will get better, one entrepreneur comes up with something, and the neighbor thinks I’ll do something too.”
The Nijmegen summer parties are a good example for Lemmen. “I often go there because of the festivals. The Nijmegen Four Days Marches, for which the Summer Festivities have been organised, will please me…” And that will soon be the case with the Tilburg fair. You come for a performance in the Spoorpark and then notice that there is also a fun fair running. so you get something out of that.”
In addition to the website of the Tilburg fair, a website is also being made for everything that is organized around the fair. That is www.kermisfestivaltilburg.nl † What you can see at the regular fair can be found on https://detilburgsekermis.nl The Tilburg fair starts on July 22 and lasts 10 days.