New Audiences and Diversity
Performances like The Brotherhood and ROHTKO at ITA, Extra Life at Bellevue, and the late-night programmes at Likeminds on 14 June (in collaboration with Suzie Blok and Bar Bario) and 21 June (in collaboration with Africadelic and Parallel) drew notably young and diverse audiences. The club night on 21 June was part of Amsterdam’s night mayors’ programme celebrating Amsterdam 750.
Alliances were also renewed with organisations like One World, Winq and Stadspas to reach new audiences. For Paraorchestra there were collaborations with organisations including Uniek Sporten with a special promotion for their community.
Campaign and Positioning
We continued our collaboration with the KesselsKramer agency. The campaign once again centred on the human/artist under the slogan ‘Holland Festival: groundbreaking performing arts’. Six festival artists featured in this year’s campaign images.
Advertisements could be seen throughout Amsterdam and the four other major cities, as well as surrounding municipalities. As always, the instantly recognisable festival flags were all over the city, venues were festively decorated, and Hotel Casa, Muziekgebouw and Nationale Opera & Ballet were fit with beautiful sticker branding. Twenty advertising columns throughout the city displayed two large performance images alongside programme highlights showcasing the festival’s wide range.
Six different radio advertisements aired on Radio 1 and Radio 4. Online advertising ran on Facebook and Instagram, with additional campaigns via Google Display, NRC and DPG Media online as well as NRC podcasts.
Audience Communication
As in previous years, the programme brochure was available in Dutch and English, with clear descriptions and three associative hashtags per performance for orientation and inspiration.
Like last year, the programme booklets were mainly digital for reasons of sustainability. They were included the service emails, posted on the website’s programme pages, and accessible via QR codes at festival venues.
The website was redesigned for clarity and listed not just the programme, but also in-depth texts, interviews, podcasts videos and streams. All content is added to the digital archive and will continue to be accessible.
Regional Focus: The Hague
Due to the NATO summit, The Hague was difficult to reach during the performance dates of Star Returning. A dedicated campaign was therefore created for this specific region, which included posters (because of the nature of the performance also with Chinese text to reach The Hague’s Chinese community), digital screens (via Den Haag Marketing), newsletters from Amare, HNT and Kunstmuseum, and various regional digital campaigns.
Social Media and Influencers
Backstage footage, artist statements, previews, premiere photos and short explanatory videos were shared on Instagram and Facebook. The festival’s reach grew thanks to collaborations with artists, productions, venues, companies and influencers.
The community on Instagram grew from 15,000 to nearly 17,000 followers, while Facebook maintained a steady 41,000+ followers. Since last year, the festival is also active on TikTok, where it has around 14,000 followers.
In the run-up to the festival, we worked with six young influencers - Max Terpstra, Zoë Love Smith, Toon Lobach, Elmer, Pete Wu and Tatjana Almuli - for making a series of short videos in which they talked about which two performances they looked forward to in particular. During the festival, five more influencers joined: Milou Deelen, Doortje Smithuijsen, Valentijn Hoogenkamp, Cathelijne Blok and Lizzy van Hees.
Media Attention
The festival was covered extensively in both online and print media. Pre-festival specials appeared in De Groene Amsterdammer, VPRO Gids and Het Parool, with De Volkskrant and NRC publishing a number of previews.
NTR broadcast the HF x NTR Saturday Matinees live on radio and also made the episodes available online. VPRO aired two Holland Festival specials on NPO2 on 15 and 21 June, while NPO Start presented an eight-part VPRO series online with Cesar Majorana and guests exploring the festival.
Audience Research
For the first time, ticket holders were sent a short questionnaire the day after performances for gaining insight into experiences, satisfaction, audience profiles and areas for improvement.
Sustainable Communication
The Holland Festival remains committed to sustainability. Festival flags are repurposed for merchandise (bags and other items). Programme booklets were mainly distributed in digital form, while the programme brochures are printed climate-neutrally. In consultation with companies, fresh flowers were replaced by reusable artificial flowers.