At the end of April, it was announced that all events are banned until September 1. For the last couple of months, the biggest events of Noord Brabant and the Netherlands, such as GLOW and Dutch Design Week (DDW) are taking into account new ideas to be able to execute these events under the COVID-19 measurements.

Even though the ban on events that require a permit was lifted on 1 July 2020 with some specific conditions, it will be dreamy to think that thousands of people will be able to come and enjoy themselves without risking themselves and the others.

Dutch Design Week  (October 17-25)

Dutch Design Week (DDW) is one of the most significant events in Northern Europe, which occurs every year in Eindhoven and presents work and ideas of more than 2600 designers to more than 350,000 visitors from home and abroad. DDW organization focuses on new experiments and innovations and design of the future, making it extremely unique and a ‘must go’ event. After the cancellation of all events and gatherings until September 1st, DDW organizers started to look at different scenarios step by step to make this important event possible in the given circumstances.

DDW will take place as an online event this year and accept online visitors worldwide. The organization receives the title, the first hybrid design festival of the world, with this online version. Over the past four months, DDW’s platform has been fully upgraded, from the website to a virtual festival. However, DDW will still accept a small number of visitors, but most of them will be professional visitors meaning designers. On the other hand, there will be limited day tickets, which will become available online on 1 October. When purchasing your ticket, you will choose a day, time-slots, and the three design areas you want to visit on that day. For this edition, DDW has 30 locations spread over 7 ‘Design Areas’ in Eindhoven: Campina, Central, Downtown, Hallenweg + Plan-B, Sectie-C, Station, Strijp-S, Strijp T+R, which is a lot more compact than previous years but for a good reason. Even DDW published an article in their magazine “Who can visit DDW? When and where?” to explain all the air details.

Also, as a part of Dutch Design Week, Manifestations, which focuses the spotlight on art and projects investigating the ‘matches’ and ‘mismatches’ between people and technology, is looking for inspirational, helpful, and resourceful volunteers for its team to create and operate the exhibition during this year. “Being part of Manifestations makes me feel like I am part of a family. It is a fun way to socialize, expand your network and experience the Art/Tech culture of the Netherlands,” says Nikol Vetronova as one of the volunteers at Manifestations. 

The focus points of the DDW for this year, “The future requires thinking and acting, connection, and responsibility,” make even more sense with the current situation.

GLOW Festival Eindhoven (November 7-14)

Last year, around 770.000 people came to GLOW to walk a 5 km route around an enormous light exposition at Eindhoven’s streets. This public event hosted over 35 national and international light artists exhibiting their works of art in the city center. For this year, the anniversary edition of the GLOW Festival Eindhoven will take place between 7 November Saturday 14 November Saturday. For the new edition of GLOW, several scenarios were taken into account, but the most efficient and possible one has been chosen in the end. Presenting large projects in the air or mobile light artworks that drive past parks and nursing homes every few days is the plan to make the GLOW event possible safely and responsibly in its anniversary year. There are also plans to get Eindhoven completely dark for half an hour during GLOW and to have everyone put a light outside. We bet it will be worth seeing this visual feast as always. 

Although the physical version of Marathon Eindhoven has been canceled until 2021, the virtual version of the marathon will take place at our home. You can basically download the Marathon Eindhoven application, which imitates the Marathon Eindhoven experience as lifelike as possible. While you are running through the app, you will receive various updates, such as your current ranking and speed. When you reach the finish, you will find yourself in the digital leaderboard.

Unlike the other events taking place in Eindhoven, Lampegatse (Eindhoven) Carnaval, the annual event taking place at 11.11 every year, is postponed to summer in the hopes of a vaccine by that time. Because Carnaval is all about enjoying, laughing, and dancing together, it seems that there is no possible way to organize it this year. Even though the alternative plans were discussed, such as having the Carnaval with the tables positioned to maintain adequate distance or having an online version, the organizers made the last decision. 

As we accepted, the pandemic made us more creative and solution-oriented and prepared us to create a new normal for ourselves from the chaos. One more time, the second wave of the pandemic seems hard at hand. However, we are here and together. We will enjoy and live our lives as we always do.

We Are Not Alone Campaign, is presented in collaboration with Expat Spouses Initiative – Eindhoven, LIVING IN , Holland Expat Center & Brainport Eindhoven. Through this campaign, we aim to bring the International community together and engage them actively.

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