Deventer recommends public transport for Dickens festival

Deventer will be busy on Saturday and Sunday for the 31st edition of the Dickens Festival. This festival will be so crowded that the city council is urging visitors to use public transport to get to the city center in Overijssel. Many streets around the Deventer centre will be closed off or unreachable, and many areas will be forbidden for parking. Even for pedestrians, there is a one-way rule in the Bergkwartier, where the festival will take place.

In the Bergkwartier, there are around 950 figures from the time of the writer walking around. A share of those will be inhabitants of the houses in the historical part of the city. Houses and streets are all decorated in the 19th-century British Christmas theme. The Deventer Dickens Festival was the Netherlands' first Christmas festival in 1991. Since then, there have been similar festivals in more places.

The Dickens Festival in Deventer attracts around 125.000 visitors every year. They can only enter at one spot in the Bergkwartier. There is a long queue there, which can make people wait as long as an hour and a half. All streets from and to the Bergkwartier are blocked off with gates, so there is only one walking route. The city has built a walkway over the queue for the public in the centre who do not want to attend the festival.