Check this blogpost for the new update of
Festivals & Events in 2023

An update, Coronavirus update 25 January 2022: 19.45. Most locations in our country will reopen on

Wednesday 26 January under conditions. Apart from shops, education, sports clubs, practising art and culture and contact professions like hairdressers, from tomorrow onwards the catering industry, cinemas, theatres, museums, concert halls, zoos and amusement parks will also open their doors. In addition, sports events outside the clubs are allowed again and the public is welcome at all sports events.

A since March 2020, life came to a standstill in terms of festivals and events. With the Coronavirus outbreak, control measures have been put in place that has changed nightlife and social life. At the time of this first writing, everything was closed or canceled until 1 June. All bigger festival events are canceled until the first of September. Now we are happy the rush of the Coronavirus broke down and the numbers of infected people went down. Vaccination is available and thing looks promising.

Just when Tilburg is now known for the number of events and festivals that are held in and around the city everything has been set on hold. In the city centre, in the Koepelhal van de Spoorzone, 013, Midi-theater or in Theaters Tilburg, or in the immediate vicinity such as Piushaven or the Leijpark, everything has come to a standstill through the social-distancing and the prohibition to come together. For 2020 and 2021 all the summer-festival events were lost and now rescheduled for the next year 2022. Now in spring 2022 every thing is back to normal.

In Tilburg we have a rich history of festival culture. However, many of those original festivals have now disappeared from the agenda. Many people have such good memories of festivals like Mundial and Incubate. Meanwhile, new festivals have blossomed such as Best Kept Secret, Woo-Hah or Rebirth. But Corona now has already for two years stop all events.

The event-year starts with the traditional Carnival that is held at the end of February or beginning of March in the southern region of the Netherlands. In Tilburg, too, this festivity bursts into life with one of the highlights, ‘Den Opstoet’, the carnival parade. Which in 2020 marked the outbreak of Corona.

The normal in March, the Tilt Festival is held for everyone who writes, a multi-day literature and poetry event (www.tilt.nu) to close the Book Week.

In April, the internationally acclaimed Roadburn Festival is held in 013 and the surrounding venues (www.roadburn.com). 

Then in early May there is the Death Metal Fest. At the end of May there is the Meimarkt in the centre (www.meimarkt.nl).

June is followed by the Festival of Song of Life in the city centre and the HapStap Festival in Tivoli Park (www.hapstap.nl).

Then in June there is the Spoorzone, Piushaven, Leijpark and in the Beekse Bergen the Best Kept Secret Festival, which of course is no secret anymore. The Woo-Hah festival has also moved to the Beekse Bergen.

And the summer realy starts with the Fun Fair which spreads thoughout the city-centre

The events calendar normally runs deep into the second part of the year. Normally Tilburg has a number of events in the calendar until November of the year to fuel the nightlife. Like ‘Kaapdestad’ in august and so on.

With the new rules, events will change the character and have to be much smaller in scale. It is all a big experiment. Cafes and restaurants will be accessible again, theaters, cinemas, and museums will be reopened. Slowly but surely, if the virus does not regain momentum, a cultural life will be possible again. Though it’s not like we’ve ever known it.
Now new try-outs are made possible and also the theater and the concert hall have re-opened with adapted programs and a regulated smaller number of visitors per show. Let’s hope now we have vaccination, thing will finally turn to normal in the view of 2022. Though in October 2021: the biggest circus-festival of the Netherlands will be held in Tilburg, from 22 to 31: Festival Circolo.

Also, we can’t take a deeper look into the future. As long as the measures are in place to control the Coronavirus outbreak and only vaccination will solve this  problem, we have no idea if things will go back to normal and when? So most programming will take place in an adapted format and with ‘social distancing in place, to reduce transmission of the Coronavirus. Bar and restaurants have reopened and social and cultural life has resumed at a slower pace as we ever knew before and with new feats as the Coronacheck-app to give entry.

Here you can find the current Events overview 2023 of Tilburg

Please check regularly for updates.