Imagine a steady stream of construction dust in your eyes, rowdy college students with cheap beer and non-stop noise by no-name bands ringing in your ears until you want to scream. Sound good? Then by all means, go to the Gentse Feesten in Ghent this month.
Now imagine a beautiful sunset, a cool breeze, warm sand between your toes and drinking an imaginative cocktail in the company of friends. Sounds very exotic doesn’t it? This is just an ordinary night by the Scheldt during the Zomer van Antwerpen, or Summer of Antwerp.
Every year tens of thousands of people attend this vibrant city’s hot and happening summer festival. It’s two whole stress-free months (as opposed to 10 overcrowded days) of culture, entertainment and good times.
This festival has actually become so popular that many productions needing a ticket are already sold out.
But fear not! There are still tickets to a number of shows and loads of free activities if you’d like to soak up the laid-back atmosphere of this bubbling summer metropolis – the largest, most international city in Flanders, I might add.
Zomer van Antwerpen offers inhabitants an eclectic mix of music, movies and performance in both the city’s top locations and lesser-known spots. People of all ages can revel in this combination of tradition and innovation, without road works, noise or dirt. (Have you been to the giant construction site that is Ghent lately? No, and wisely, neither has anyone else.)
In Antwerp, you can sit back and relax in the Zomerbar, a green oasis fully equipped with grass huts, hammocks, sand and colourful cocktails, just south of the city centre. This year it will be accompanied by the Zomerbibliotheek, an intriguing mobile library for those of us who enjoy a good book with our Bordeaux. (We’re rather unsure if the Hoegaarden-guzzlers of the Gentse Feesten can actually read.)
Activities that are free of charge, for example, are the outdoor movies in one of the hangars by the Scheldt. This year’s theme is “parties”, ranging from raves to dinners, so prepare yourself for swinging cinematic treats, such as The Full Monty, Almost Famous and Mamma Mia. If you prefer music, you can visit one of Antwerp’s many squares that host charismatic singers from the four corners of the world, resulting in one big neighbourhood party, including regional food and drink.
The Zomerfabriek is one of this year’s new locations, a renovated industrial site in the up-and-coming neighbourhood Nieuw Zurenborg. It not only has a swanky lounge bar but houses many of the top acts, like Renaissance man Geert Hautekiet’s Vieze verol tjes (Dirty Tales), a combination of music and saucy satire, and the funky beats of Friday night’s Late Night Shows, which alternate with Saturday’s movie shorts.
If you find yourself stranded at 4.00 after a night of partying, just head to the Nulsterrenpension, the Zomerfabriek’s very own hotel. This former office building has been turned into a low-cost B&B, where you can catch a few winks and some breakfast for as little as €15. I doubt Ghent thought of this. But this summer’s highlight will without a doubt be De Duiker, the newest production of the Royal de Luxe, who have previously graced our majestic city with spectacular parades featuring giants, elephants and magical tales. From 20-22 August, you can feast your eyes on this year’s legend featuring a giant, a diver and a bag full of hopes and dreams.
Elbowed by drunk youth while getting your sandals filthy or bagsful of hopes and dreams. Take your pick.
Many of the ticketed events in Zomer van Antwerpen are already sold out, but not all of them.
For those that are, you can still get a piece of the action: a limited number of tickets are always on sale at the door right before the performance. These are the ones worth fighting for.
It’s your wedding day, and everything goes horribly wrong. Throw in some acrobats, a little situational humour and some catchy live music, and you’ve got the latest nonlanguage creation by the Basque Country’s internationally renowned Circus Klezmer. 4-15 August
Dwaallicht (Will-o’-the-wisp) is based on the Flemish classic by novelist Willem Elsschot, who also happens to have a festival in his honour right now in Antwerp. Things just keep on getting better here, don’t they? Anyway, actor Warre Borgmans plays the famous character Frans Laarmans, accompanied by a little rock ‘n’ roll. 2-28 July
Antwerp theatre company De Roovers presents the fabulously funny Blue Remembered Hills based on the 1970s BBC television play by Dennis Potter, where the lines between children and grown-ups get vey blurred indeed. 3-24 July
Finally, what do you get when you combine sensual dancing, divine voices, gut-wrenching love and two Italian cyclists? Answer: the strange yet captivating open-air spectacle Luce. Enough said. 7-10 July
It’s not that I have anything against Antwerp. Per se. It’s just that I’m not falling for their nonsense. Zomer van Antwerpen, they call it, as if every city doesn’t have a summer. But nooo, Antwerp is super special, see, because they’ve planned lots of events. Well, who hasn’t?
OK, they may have done a tad more, with all their fancy outdoor bars and “world-class” performances. But that still doesn’t excuse them stringing out their summer festival for endless weeks (until it peters quietly out to nothing). A festival needs a beginning and an end, and the splashier the better. It needs to boldly say, HERE I AM, and if you don’t get your ass in gear, you are going to miss me. It needs to provide an ongoing sense of familiarity while simultaneously shaking things up a little.
And nothing does that like the Gentse Feesten.
The good people of Ghent have been throwing this party for...wait for it...167 years now, and it is the...wait for it...largest music and street theatre festival in Europe. In fact, it’s not called Gentse Feesten – Festivals of Ghent – for nothing. It’s actually the coming together of several festivals for 10 glorious days.
But even that number is debatable since most people consider the respected Ghent Jazz Festival, which starts this week, to be part of the Gentse Feesten. As you no doubt saw in our Summer Festival Guide last week, the annual jazz fest welcomes the likes of Norah Jones, Ornette Coleman and Madness.
But, as they say, that’s just the beginning. The Gentse Feesten is also a street theatre festival, a comedy festival, a puppet buskers’ festival, a techno festival, a youth circus festival and a rock festival called Boomtown that embodies the freedom and impulsivity of being young in one of Europe’s most vibrant small cities.
That’s one of the beautiful things about Gentse Feesten – you don’t need a plan, and you don’t need much money, because, aside from all of that, every square in the city centre becomes a free live music stage. It’s split up by genre, so you can choose to sit a spell at the world stage, the Flemish crooners stage, the blues stage, the cheesy cover bands stage or the Polo Polo festival, which finds a stage stretched across the canal. Or you can just wander around. No ticket required.
However, should you be the type who likes to plan, there are also ticketed performances in the city’s many indoor spaces, from cabaret to full-fledged theatre. Nearly all of them are in Dutch and some of them are in the city’s dialect because the festival is a celebration of that, too.
And the Gentse Feesten doesn’t turn into a pumpkin when the clock tower strikes midnight. After the music is over, the street parties begin, most notably with DJs on Sint-Baafsplein and in the Vlaasmarkt, where the all-night cafes congregate on any night. About 7.00, people traditionally wrap up their night with an Irish coffee.
The Gentse Feesten is busy, the programme is massive, and it all fills you with a nervous sense of being in the middle of chaos, yet secretly protects you in its little city-centre culture cocoon. Sublime.
Of course, a few residents who live in the heart of Ghent’s centre actually take their holidays during the Gentse Feesten, citing 24-hour-a-day noise. But who cares about them? If you can’t take the heat, baby, stay out of the kitchen.
The Gentse Feesten is several festivals in one. Here’s three of them not to miss.
MiramirO Programmers travel Europe all year ’round searching for the best street theatre to bring to Ghent. It happens in designated squares in the centre, plus a short walk east to Sint-Baafsabdij. If there’s one act you really want to see, get there early. Gentenaars are rabid street theatre lovers, and the crowds can get thick. A few acts – but very few – are in tents and require reservations.
International Puppet Buskers Festival Lest you think that the Gentse Feesten is crazy and wild and not suitable for those under 17, this should put your fears to rest. In the cutest little courtyard you’re ever likely to see is this festival of puppeteers from across the world. The work is so top-notch, some adults attend with no children in tow whatsoever.
Bataclan This sort of mini circus festival showed up a few years ago, rather unannounced, on an empty lot no one ever noticed before off the Willem de Beersteeg. It turned out to be outrageously popular with Ghent’s many young hipster parents for its bizarre circus acts, human jukebox, Jesus for Kids (don’t even ask) and chairs hanging from trees. It’s packed to the gills but still feels like a secret.
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