Hotels in Amsterdam

The growing popularity of Kwakoe Summer Festival

The Kwakoe Summer Festival, the six-week Dutch festival is a unique blend of all the different cultural groups of Amsterdam offering live music, tropical markets, parades, sports (a famous football competition), dancing and much more. The festival is held at the Bijlmer Park in Amsterdam South East, where the colorful market offers a wide range of Surinamese, Antillean, Turkish and African food, drinks and other cultural specialities.

Kwakoe, which started in 1975 as a football tournament of the Surinamese community, has gradually grown into one of the main multi-cultural festivals in the Netherlands, enjoying popularity not only among the locals but also from outside visitors.

This year, the festival was officially opened by the mayor of Amsterdam, Job Cohen, and had three stages spread across the festival area. The main stage had a varied programme with DJs, live bands and dance workshops. The culture stage was dedicated to the multi-faceted cultural roots of Surinam. The Kwakoe lounge catered to the young with a mix of comedy, poetry and live music provided by GetMixed Radio. This year, the festival has drawn about 350,000 visitors, 50,000 more than last year.