- Oranjegekte
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Dutch people dressed in orange before the football match Netherlands–Australia
Oranjegekte (Orange craze) or Oranjekoorts (Orange fever) is a phenomenon in the Netherlands that occurs during Queen's Day, international football (soccer) championships, and other major international sporting events. The event manifests itself in wearing orange clothing such as T-shirts (mostly football-shirts), caps and scarfs, painting ones hair orange and decorating of rooms, houses and even entire streets with orange decorative objects.
The event is highly valuable to commerce as large profits can be made selling orange products. Many companies introduce special orange editions of their regular products. Commercials tend to respond well to this and especially during World Championships a lot of commercials refer to the event.
A lot of brands also introduce special goodies during these events. Mostly beer brands and supermarkets. Examples of these items are the Heineken hats and Albert Heijn's Wuppies, Welpies and Beesies.
Many artists produce special songs around the time of the European and World Championships that refer to the Dutch National Footbalteam, which is most often called Oranje (Orange). Most of these songs have no particular meaning other than encouraging the team or the festivities.
Orange is the symbolic colour of the Dutch royal family, the House of Orange-Nassau.
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