The festival was to be held on the Wadden Island Terschelling
Translated by Thomas Ansell
As reported by the Omrop Fryslân, Oerol Festival will go online this year, with a five-day programme to be live-streamed from Terschelling, meaning that arts and music lovers can still tune in to a cultural highlight of the summer.
“We hope that we can bring about that island-feeling”, said general director Siart Smit, “with acts performing form home or indeed amongst the dunes.” Each day of the programme will focus on another theme area; for example ‘building the future’, ‘climate’, or ‘pressure on the coast’.
Digital visitors to the festival can also see a new piece of landscape-art each day, by artist Marc van Vliet. “Aside from the interactive activities and live events, there’ll also be a series of activities available on-demand”, said Smit. That doesn’t mean that ‘visitors’ will just be sitting behind their screen in board shorts, however, with some events requiring participatory exercises.
Each ‘visitor’ to the island can make their own day plan in a specially-designed digital platform; The Imaginary Island. The closing party will be a giant ‘Zoom-disco’ on the beach. In principle, the digital festival will be completely free, but the organization will naturally accept any contributions. “People can buy a ‘fan band’ if they want”, said Smit.
