From Tilburg to Europe

Tilburg, the Netherlands, 28-29 June 2026

At the invitation of Art-fact, a member of the Amateo network, several of our members had the pleasure of spending two days in the beautiful city of Tilburg, located in the southern Dutch province of North Brabant.

On the first day, we visited the Tilburg on Stage festival, which celebrated its 5th anniversary on June 28th. This lively festival is dedicated to amateur and leisure arts, providing a stage for local talent of all ages. With over 80 acts, the festival offered a vibrant and diverse mix of music ensembles, choirs, theater troupes, bands, singer-songwriters, and dancers, showcasing the very best of what Tilburg’s creative scene has to offer.

Read more about the Festival

The event was officially opened at 12:30 PM in the Schouwburgzaal by Mayor Gräper – van Koolwijk, followed by an energetic opening act by young talents filled with dance, song, and spectacular performances.

All festival locations were clearly marked on the map and situated within walking distance of each other. This allowed visitors to easily stroll from one performance to another, encountering surprising and delightful acts along the way.

We concluded that the city’s excellent infrastructure – with cultural institutions centrally located or in close proximity to one another – proved to be an essential foundation for organizing such an event. The large number of participants was perfectly coordinated in terms of both time and space, while the volunteers, as is the case with most demanding events, made the greatest contribution to its success. The participants themselves highlighted networking and socializing as the most significant benefits of the festival, to which we would add the public and media visibility of active, participatory engagement, which is undoubtedly much greater and more impactful when forces are joined.

The first series of festivals photos is now online. The photos were taken by Rens Bresser Fotografie  and Koektrommel Studio

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On the second day of our stay in Tilburg, we gathered at Factorium for the Amateo General Assembly and the follow-up session “From Tilburg to Europe“.

The hybrid follow-up session was led by Judith Ensel, Director of Art-fact in Tilburg. The session explored formal, informal and hybrid forms of cultural participation and asked how different cultural ecosystems recognise, support and connect creative activity.

Judith presented Art-fact’s approach as a local cultural support platform that works with both formal amateur arts organisations and informal initiatives. Rather than applying rigid distinctions between amateur and professional practice, Art-fact supports a broad spectrum of participation, including neighbourhood initiatives, emerging makers, young musicians, artists with disabilities and collaborations between professional artists and community participants. The discussion considered how intermediary organisations can help connect people, venues, expertise and funding while making diverse forms of cultural participation more visible.

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Special guests of our session, representatives of EELT Theatercollectief described their hybrid way of working with professionals and non-professionals. Their project-based approach seeks to create inclusive theatre opportunities for people who might not otherwise participate in cultural activities. The presentation also illustrated the practical difficulty of sustaining this work within fragmented funding systems and the challenge of combining different funding sources for projects that cross conventional policy categories.

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Read more about Follow-up session

The European exchange broadened the discussion beyond Tilburg. Jan-Willem van Kruyssen referred to Fryslân as an example of a cultural ecosystem in which professional and amateur organisations are both part of a wider cultural infrastructure and are encouraged to collaborate. He contrasted this with experiences in Southern Europe, including Portugal, where distinctions between professional, amateur, community, heritage and craft practices can be more fluid and where cultural activity is often closely interwoven with local community life.

Christine O’Kelly shared examples from Ireland, including programmes and structures supporting creative participation, older people, artist residencies and opportunities for international exchange. The discussion considered how funding systems, legal structures and public policy can either enable or constrain participation, especially where informal groups and hybrid organisations do not fit easily into conventional categories.

Participants agreed that there is no single European model of cultural participation. The diversity of local, regional and national cultural ecosystems offers opportunities for mutual learning. A recurring question was how policy and funding structures can recognise and support creative energy wherever it emerges, without forcing every initiative into a rigid organisational model.

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Where do we go from here?

The Tilburg exchange opened up a conversation that we would like to continue across the Amateo network. We invite members to:

• share examples of how formal, informal and hybrid cultural participation is supported in their own countries and regions;
• identify policies and practices that successfully connect professional, amateur and community-based cultural activity;
• explore how informal initiatives can be recognised and supported without forcing them into structures that do not fit;
• develop new opportunities for peer learning, online exchange and European cooperation around these themes.

From Tilburg to Europe is therefore not the conclusion of the conversation, but an invitation to continue it.