Redheadday

Redheadday is the name of a Dutch summer festival that takes place each first weekend of September in the city of Breda, the Netherlands. The two-day festival is a large gathering of people with natural red hair, but is also focused on art related to the color red. Activities during the festival are lectures, workshops and demonstrations which are aimed specifically at redhaired people. The festival attracts an international audience, red haired people from 20 countries all over the world come together. The festival is free due to sponsorship of the local government.Participants are asked to register at the festival website and are regularly informed about the festival by digital newsletters. Two weeks preceding the festival, paper invitations are send to the registrants. At the festival, all activities are free for everyone, and there are no reservations required. Expositions are explained in Dutch and English, the programm booklet has a Dutch and English version.

Festival 2005

The festival started in 2005 as an idea of the Dutch artpainter Bart Rouwenhorst in the small Dutch city Asten. This first year, the focus was on redheaded women who all volunteered to pose for modelpaintings. At the events in later years, the aim for participants was expanded to a general audience of people with red hair. The first meeting attracted 150 natural redheads. Most attendees wore green clothing by request. [http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6d/Rood2005.jpg] .

Festival 2007

The second event was organised in 2007 Breda, in and around the main church of Breda. At September 2nd 2008, 800 redheads came to the city, amazing the inhabitants of Breda. The dresscode was white. The festival was opened by the major of Breda, reveiling a painting of 50 redheads. The festival poster contained a picture of a redheaded model in a wedding dress. [http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/59/Dazzling.jpg] [http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4f/581redheads.jpg] .

Festival 2008

At 7 September 2008, about 1.500 to 2.000 redheads from 15 countries came to Breda to celebrate the third redheadday. The program consisted of 42 activities, including large exibitions of 40 artists. The dresscode was black. The program was multi-lingual for the first time and the press coverage was worldwide. Articles appeared in newspapapers from Norway to Hong Kong and Chile. In 2008 some Dutch calenders started noting the first sunday of september as the official redheadday, a day honoring redheads. It complements Mothers Day and Father's Day, the celebrations honoring parents.

Festival 2009

The next event will take place on Saturday September 5th and Sunday September 6th, 2009. The location is again the historic innercity of Breda. 3.000 to 5.000 natural redheads are expected from 20 countries. On Saturday, the focus will be on the visitors that come from abroad. On Sunday, the main event will take place, with the traditional groupphoto in the main city park of Breda. In 2009, the program will contain about 100 activities, ranging from large artistic photoshoots by artists, to workshops with children, and lectures on different aspects of having red hair.

Festival 2010 and beyond

Future events are planned to take place in Breda, each time in the first weekend of september. Dates are 4 and 5 september 2010, 3 and 4 september 2011, 1 and 2 september 2012. The expected numbers of visitors are not set by the organisation. However, so far the number of visitors has more than doubled each event, even during the rainy 2008 edition.

Trivia

* In 2005, the event competed for publicity in the local newspapers in Asten with a local pumpkin contest. However, the Dutch national press made the event headline news. The mayor of Asten remarkt later that the event caused the first frontpage publicity on the city of Asten in the national press, ever.
* If the event would double in size each year, in 2015 the number of redheaded participants would equal the number of redheads in The Netherlands (320,000) and 2019 the number of redhaired visitors would equal the number of redheads in Europe (5,000,000). It would take up to 2022 to have all redheads from the world together (30,000,000).

References

External links

* [http://www.redheadday.com Main Festival Site]
* [http://www.rh08.com Main Exibition Site]
* http://www.zdf.de/ZDFmediathek/content/580654?inPopup=true

* http://travel.hexun.com/2008-08-26/108376760.html

* http://kurier.at/freizeitundgesundheit/197243.php

* http://www.stop.hu/articles/article.php?id=379577

* http://www.lasegunda.com/ediciononline/internacional/detalle/index.asp?idnoticia=432418