1997

Festival that celebrates diversity

Pink Spring (Roze Lente), a lesbian and gay cultural festival, that settled in the city of Utrecht for six weeks in 1997, was an emancipatory motor for the gay and lesbian movement in Utrecht. The MidZomerGracht Festival (Midsummer Canal Festival), then the closing event of Pink Spring, grew into an annual festival that celebrated diversity. It stopped in 2023 and was succeeded by the Utrecht Queer Culture Festival. 

Pink Spring

The municipality of Utrecht was the initiator of Pink Spring. The Utrecht LGBTI+-world was fragmented in the late 1990s. There was little or no cooperation or mutual cohesion. Pink Spring ensured that the groups got to know each other and started working together. The municipality of Utrecht wanted to set an example for organisations, institutions and facilities and show that you can enter the public space in a positive way with the theme of homosexuality.

A project team – policy officer Jan Vesters with volunteers from the city – coordinated Pink Spring. The first volunteers were Anja van Belkum, Henny Bos, Kaï de Wijs, Marion Etman and Paul ter Veld.

1997

The first Roze Lente lasted six weeks, from 13 May to 22 June 1997, and consisted of numerous activities, such as a pink art route, the literary programme ‘Out of the book closet' (Uit de Boekenkast) by bookstore Savannah Bay, a pink film festival in cinema ’t Hoogt, (multicultural) theatre productions, a volleyball tournament, photo exhibitions, parties, discussion meetings and the publication of the gay information guide De Roze Kant. A choir, accompanied by the barrel organ De Utrechtenaar, performed the song “Hé weet je het al!”, specially composed for the Roze Lente, on the steps of the town hall.

City walk

In the context of the Pink Spring, Wilma de Hoog compiled the booklet Utrecht Pink Routes, two city walks (Utrechtse Roze Routes, twee stadswandelingen) that takes the reader/walker along famous and infamous places from Utrecht's queer history. The northern route goes along several locations where there were public urinals where gay men met. During the Pink Spring, a 'Utrechtse Krul' was temporarily placed, a column with information about gay and lesbian life in Utrecht in the past and present.

1998

The second Pink Spring was opened on June 20, 1998 with the Midzomergracht Spectacle. This was followed from 21 to 26 June by 5 Pink Spring Days and concluded on 27 June 1998 with Pink Saturday.

The Midzomergracht Festival then consisted of activities initiated by Roze Lente in the first year, such as the literary program, a film festival, city walk, volleyball tournament and a big youth party (Panndora, formerly the Mega PANN party).

The Pink Spring became the driving force behind the annual Midzomergracht Festival, a ten-day event full of LGBTQIA+ activities. In order to measure whether the Pink Spring objective had been achieved, a question was asked in the 1997 survey Nieuw Utrechts Peil. As far as Jan Vesters could remember, 65 percent of the 1,000 Utrecht residents interviewed by telephone were familiar with one or more of the Pink Spring activities.

TalkExpoShow

A special part of the Pink Spring was the TalkExpoShow with representatives from Utrecht's two international sister cities, Brno in the Czech Republic and León in Nicaragua. Guests from those two cities spent a week getting to know Dutch and Utrecht organisations, exchanging information with each other and the people of Utrecht about gay and lesbian life and exploring the possibilities for mutual support.

At the photo exhibition, the faces of the Nicaraguan gays and lesbians had to be covered with a bar, because homosexuality was still punishable in Nicaragua at the time. On the other hand, the mayor of León Rigoberto Sampson Granera did participate in the TalkExpoShow and the concept of the Midzomergrachtfestival was adopted in a cultural festival in León in 2004 and 2005.

Film report

Tie van der Horst made a film report Twee over Roze (Two about Pink) of the entire festival and the preparation. This report is intercut with the portrait of two homosexuals from Utrecht. This documentary had its premiere a week after the festival. Photographer Dorien Koppenberg provided the visual report of the entire festival with hundreds of photos.

Design Police

The Pink Spring PR campaign had to reach as many people as possible in the city. The posters, designed by the Design Police, hung in bus shelters and cultural frames in the city. The footage was exhibited in Los Angeles during a Dutch Design exhibition.

Midzomergracht

When Jan Vesters asked the owners of Utrecht's gay bars, Ton Alkemade and Jan Scheepstra and Feibe Zweers, to participate in the Roze Lente in 1997, the three set up the foundation 'De Overkant' to be able to organize a party. The part of the wharfs of the Oudegracht between the three pubs was filled with pontoons, on which two evenings of partying with performances and disco were held. With that, the first freely accessible Utrecht queer cultural event was born: the Midzomergracht Spektakel (Midsummer Canal Spectacle). Thousands of people from all over the country came to it and it would continue for 25 years. Eventually no longer on the part of the Oudegracht between the pubs because it became too small for the large numbers of visitors.

Festival

In 1999, after two Roze Lentes, 'De Overkant' foundation took over the festival role from the municipality. Midzomergracht became the ‘gay cultural’ festival that lasted over a week. In the years that followed, the festival programme expanded further. The core remained the same: a week in which queer organisations jointly presented themselves to the city in culture, sports, politics, religion and human interest. The formula remained largely the same: a series of events between the two crowd pullers: the big PANN youth party and the Midzomergracht Spektakel on the wharves in the Oudegracht.

Tolerance award

On May 5, 2002, 'De Overkant' Foundation, received the Tolerance Award from the city of Utrecht – a recognition for increasing tolerance towards homosexual men and women. The Tolerance Award was presented by the then mayor of Utrecht, Annie Brouwer Korf.

Midzomergracht continued to develop. In 2005, 'De Overkant' foundation drew up a vision document: ‘Diversity as a driving force’. To make it clear that the term ‘gay’ no longer did justice to the diverse and colourful character of the Utrecht queer community, the Midzomergracht Festival was no longer called a ‘gay cultural’ festival from 2013 onwards, but was celebrated with mottos such as ‘celebrate who you are’ and ‘all generations celebrate diversity together’.

Walk of love

In 2016, the 20-year-old Midzomergrachtfestival and COC Midden-Nederland organized the first Utrecht Walk of Love. Participants celebrated sexual and gender diversity and carried the largest rainbow flag in the Netherlands during their walk through the city. It became a tradition that continues to this day.

UQCF

The arrival of the successful boat parade ‘Utrecht Pride’ in 2017 (see window ‘2017 Utrecht Pride’) made it clear that Midzomergracht had passed its peak. The board of the organizing foundation was increasingly unable to unite all queer organizations. The collaboration with the brand new board of the Utrecht Pride foundation did not always go smoothly. Eventually, after more than 25 years, the board of De Overkant announced the end of the Festival in 2023. The baton was immediately taken over by Jakko Geluk, Petra Luiken and Simon Timmerman who, with the cooperation of many organizations, initiated the Utrecht Queer Culture Festival that year. No longer around Midsummer Night in June, which is now reserved for Utrecht Pride, but around Coming Out Day in October. The third edition will take place in 2025.

Henny Bos and Marion Etman