The Liberation Festival in Utrecht on May 5 is canceled for the first time since 1993 (apart from the corona years). The board considers the financial risks too great, because there is not enough financing available in case of bad weather.
Price increases and shortages of materials have led to a cost increase of 30 percent, according to the organization. The organization does not want to charge an entrance fee or raise consumer prices to compensate for this.
Chairman Jarrel Beets: “Despite all efforts, we as a city and province have not succeeded in raising enough funding together. I hope that we can make the festival possible with partners for the coming years.”
Groningen free again this year
Last year, the liberation festival in Groningen asked for an entrance fee of 5 euros for the first time. This resulted in a lot of criticism for the organization, writes RTV Noord. The city council was not happy with that decision either.
The festival sold 40,000 tickets, but also received about a hundred threatening emails for introducing an entrance fee. “Texts like ‘bunch of fascists’ and ‘I hope you die’ ended up in the organization’s mailbox,” festival director Ebel Jan van Dijk told Dagblad van het Noorden last year.
The province and the municipality decided that the festival would only receive a subsidy if the festival was freely accessible again. Today, the organization announced that this will indeed be the case this year.
Million visitors
Since 1994, a Liberation Festival has been held in all provinces on May 5. A total of approximately one million people attend the festivals each year. The theme of the upcoming edition is Living with War. The Opposites and Shantel, among others, will perform in Groningen.
- Apologies Tino Martin for ‘far from flawless’ Liberation Festival performance
- At a festival, in the park or at work: this is how we celebrated Liberation Day
