Liberation Day festivals struggling to survive

The fourteen Liberation Day festivals are struggling for survival. Especially festivals that sell food and drinks to visitors are in dire straits, with inflation pressuring this income. If they don’t get more support, several province’s free festivals won’t make it, AD reports after speaking to the festival organizers.

“It is up to the weather gods,” Anna Zwezerijnen of the Brabant Liberation Day festival told the newspaper. They’ve cut costs every way they can, but if the weather is bad and few people show up this year, they’ll have no reserves less.

The provinces and municipalities currently subsidize the Liberation Day festivals. They are doing their best to keep these free festivals afloat with higher subsidies, once-off donations, or by standing guarantee for loans. Without such a guarantee, the Brabant Liberation Day festival wouldn’t have happened this year, Zwezerijnen said.

But municipalities and provinces are also dealing with tight budgets and can’t keep the Liberation Day festivals afloat on their own in years to come. The fourteen festivals, therefore, asked State Secretary Maarten van Ooijen of Public Health - who is responsible for this in the Cabinet - for help. But to no avail.

“The Ministry of Public Health does not fund festivals,” a spokesperson for the State Secretary confirmed to AD. Van Ooijen advised the festivals to talk to their provinces and municipalities about extra support.

“Something has to be done,” Marja Kerstholt of the Liberation Festival Utrecht told the newspaper. “If May 5 is a bad day, our reserves are almost gone. Who will help the festivals out?”

The Liberation Festivals’ budgets vary widely, from a few hundred thousand to a few million euros, depending on how they arrange the sale of food and drinks. But almost all of the festivals told AD that they’re counting cents to keep afloat.

Liberation Festival Drenthe is managing to stand on its own feet for the time being, chairman Gerrit Boes told AD. But he understands the other festivals’ call for government support. “We have to do it together. The whole of the Netherlands was liberated, not just the individual provinces. The government should also look at it that way.”