We’re hosting an extra Vrije Ruimte Festival event on the Ring
This year Amsterdam Alternative celebrates its 10th anniversary and coïncidentally that aligns perfectly with Amsterdam 750.
To celebrate our 10th we kicked off with the second edition of the Vrije Ruimte Festival end of March. It was planned to be a series of 10 different events at 10 different locations through town. But sometimes plans change, and in this case it means that we have added an 11th event. On Saturday 21st of June Amsterdam Alternative will have a spot on the big Ring party to represent the free spaces of our city. Be sure to mark that in your agenda!
You probably have noticed or read somewhere that Amsterdam celebrates it’s 750th birthday this year because there is a shitload of events happening connected to this celebration. One of the biggest, most insane events in the history of Amsterdam is the Ring Party. Just to be clear the Ring is the highway around Amsterdam. And yes, that is the location for this event. From Friday late afternoon (20 June) till Sunday night (22 June) the Ring will be closed for traffic so on Saturday 21st of June the Ring Party can take place. It will actually not be the full Ring of Amsterdam that will be turned into a festival terrain but the part from East till about the Coentunnel, which is approximately 15 kilometers.
Free event
The Ring Party is a free event for everyone. The event starts around 9 or 10 in the morning with sports in the East and by 11 o’clock all areas will be open.
Besides many sports activities like marathon, basketball and freerunning there will be lots of activities varying from food, theatre, fashion shows, exhibitions, music, dance, workshops and much more. From what I have heard there will even be people getting married in the Ring and there will be a forrest with 750 trees.
Vrije Ruimte Festival
On March 29th we kicked the Vrije Ruimte Festival 2025 off with a great event at the OT301. After that we went to Bajesdorp/GROND for a great 2nd event and the week after that we had the 3rd event at Ru Paré. In May we’ll be hosting events at Cinetol and De Appel and after that we’ll have some more exciting events planned at the OCCII, Filmhuis Cavia, Treehouse NDSM, Plantage Dok and closing off at Het Groene Veld in Amsterdam north.
We had planned to celebrate the 10th anniversary of Amsterdam Alternative with 10 events but when we received the invitation to propose a plan for the Ring Party we changed our plan and added an extra 11th event. And the nice thing about this extra event is that it allows us to bring a lot of venues and collectives we work with together on 1 spot. Celebrating together on the Ring is a bonus event that we could’t resist.
Of course we realize that this is an insane, big, commercial event that will be used for years in our city marketing. An event that maybe doesn’t allign with everything we stand for. We know there is critisism possible on this but we have put those thoughts aside because we felt that it would be worse to celebrate the anniversary of our city on such a special location without the ‘alternative’ free space scene being present. We are part of this city and we want to make sure that all these (million) visitors walking and party-ing on the Ring that day realize that there is still a non-commercial, ‘undergound’ scene in Amsterdam.
Amsterdam Alternative will be programming about 100 meters of Ring in Amsterdam West, somewhere between exit OLVG West and exit Bos en Lommer.
Location
Amsterdam Alternative will be programming about 100 meters of Ring in Amsterdam West, somewhere between exit OLVG West and exit Bos en Lommer. We will be filling the space (about 600 meters)between these two extits with Ruigoord, Urban Resort and some other Free Space or Broedplaats organisations.
Programming
To represent Amsterdam Alternative we have put together (and still busy) a very diverse program with live music, dj’s, theatre, performance, dance, improv, spoken word, drag, circus and other artistic or activist expression.
The program was made after spreading an open call through the networks of Amsterdam Alternative because we wanted to make sure that everyone in our network had the opportunity to send a proposal and be part of this event. We received lots of great proposals, even so many that we had to disappoint quite some bands and performers because we couldn’t host them all.
On the poster on the previous page you can see a first list of names that are confirmed for this day but there is more to come. We’ll publish a full overview in th ecoming weeks on the AA website.
Volunteers
If you’d like to help out at this event then let us know. We can still use some extra hands for build up (from 6:00 in the morning) or build down (after 22:00 hrs), and during the day when the event is on.
Mail to info(at)amsterdamalternative.nl