Back to 2019

The week start­ed off qui­et­ly due to some rain on the Sat­ur­day after­noon and slight­ly cool­er weath­er at the start of the week. With tem­per­a­tures between 20^oC and 24^oC, the weath­er was just per­fect for lis­ten­ing to music. The vis­i­tors took full advan­tage of this oppor­tu­ni­ty and a sur­pris­ing­ly large num­ber of peo­ple came to the city espe­cial­ly for the programme. 

Not only the Valkhof Fes­ti­val, which once again drew music fans from around the coun­try and beyond, but also oth­er fes­ti­vals, like Otis Park, Fes­ti­val op ​’t Eiland, SMKM­RKT, de Kaaij, Oer­hol­lands Joris Iven­splein and Hennes Latin Stage, drew fans who came specif­i­cal­ly to see the acts per­formed on the var­i­ous podiums. 

The largest event in the Nether­lands drew near­ly as many vis­i­tors as last year. Spread over sev­en days, approx­i­mate­ly 1,625,000 fes­ti­val vis­i­tors came to Nijmegen city cen­tre. The num­ber of vis­i­tors to the Vier­daagse­feesten con­tin­ues to grow steadi­ly, keep­ing pace with the increase in num­ber of Dutch and Nijmegen citizens. 

Relive the fun

The 50^th edi­tion of the Vier­daagse­feesten gets off to a fly­ing start! 

Day 1 Photographs

A great crowd at the fire­works dis­play and pop­u­lar music acts

Day 2 Photographs

Nijmegen heroes play a cen­tral role on day 3 of the Vierdaagsefeesten

Day 3 Photographs

Big­ger crowds, but clean­er than ever!

Day 4 Photographs

Nijmegen embraces Pink Wednes­day, with open arms!

Day 5 Photographs

Vier­daagse­feesten on Thurs­day: Back to the 90’s!

Day 6 Photographs

Jubilee edi­tion with a gold­en lining 

Day 7 Photographs

The atmos­phere in the city was great, and despite the large num­ber of vis­i­tors there were rel­a­tive­ly few inci­dents. The vis­i­tors were even­ly spread across the city. It was so amaz­ing to see more than 200,000 peo­ple gath­er­ing here every day, from all lay­ers and age groups in soci­ety. Peo­ple who met ran­dom­ly on the cor­ner of the street, each on their way to their own favourite place, and shared an amaz­ing experience. 

With big names on the pro­gramme, Matrixx at the Park and Matrixx Live on the Quay were the most pop­u­lar loca­tions. For these pop­u­lar venues, the police occa­sion­al­ly had to inform vis­i­tors that the venue was ​‘Full’ via the dig­i­tal infor­ma­tion pan­els. This also occurred on the pop­u­lar Faber­plein. The addi­tion of the ​‘Rade aan de Kade’ podi­um on the new­ly refur­bished Waalka­de was also a great success. 

The big Fer­ris wheel was moved to a new loca­tion at Kelfkens­bos, from where it tow­ered even high­er above the city, result­ing in some amaz­ing photographs. 

The weath­er was ide­al for stim­u­lat­ing the appetite and a walk to the bar: many cater­ers report­ed very pos­i­tive sales. This was nec­es­sary too: in order to remain a free event, the organ­i­sa­tion of the Vier­daagse­feesten is depen­dent on con­sumer spend­ing to pay for itself. 

Remark­ably, the streets were even clean­er this year: thanks to the dis­tri­b­u­tion of 25% more bin bags and an aware­ness cam­paign, peo­ple left less rub­bish on the streets. In com­ing years we will take fur­ther steps to make the Vier­daagse­feesten com­plete­ly cir­cu­lar and clean. Togeth­er, we are work­ing towards cre­at­ing a sus­tain­able event, so future gen­er­a­tions can con­tin­ue to enjoy this fan­tas­tic fes­ti­val. In oth­er words: ambi­tions enough for the future!