Amsterdam's new permit policy will kill city's favourite festivals, organizers say

Festival organizers in Amsterdam fear that the city’s new permit policy will lead to bankruptcies. In a full-page ad in Het Parool on Thursday, festivals like Amsterdam Open Air, De Zon, Loveland, Zeezout, and DGTL called on the municipality to wait before changing the events policy. “Amsterdam is at risk of losing its vibrant festival scene,” they wrote in the message addressed to Mayor Femke Halsema and alderman Touria Meliani (events).

The city plans to implement its new events policy in 2026. The policy should give new and smaller-scale festivals a better chance of getting scarce festival places. According to Meliani, that will better meet the needs of all Amsterdam residents.

Amsterdam also wants to change the rules for next year. In 2025, space on the events calendar will be even more scarce because Sail is happening, and Amsterdam is celebrating its 750th anniversary with many incidental events. To distribute the scarce space fairly, Meliani wants to set up a committee to determine who gets a spot next year based on substantive criteria. Festivals will find out whether or not they can happen in 2025 by the end of this year.

But according to the festivals, that is much too late. “You cannot organize a safe and successful festival in six months,” the organizers wrote in the advertisement. “Organizers who get a place cannot organize their event properly. Many costs have already been incurred for the longer-running major festivals. Organizers who don’t get a permit will go bankrupt.”

They asked Halsema and Meliani for “clarity, but also the freedom to do creative and innovative business. In order to achieve the best for all Amsterdam residents.”

The festival organizers want the city to copy the 2024 events calendar as-is to 2025 so that everyone knows where they stand. That will give them more certainty for the continuity of their business and space to start implementing the changes the city thinks necessary.

According to Parool, a study published on Wednesday showed that eight out of ten Amsterdam residents sometimes attend events in the city and don’t think anything is missing from the offer. Seven in ten think the current offer enriches the city and don’t mind the nuisance associated with festivals.

The Amsterdam city council will discuss the new events policy on Thursday. In the evening, the municipality will present the results of the participation process for the new events policy in the Felix Merits cultural center.