Harbour Festival IJmuiden

What makes IJmuiden so special? On 25 & 26 August 2012, this year's Harbour Festival focuses on what's made IJmuiden distinctive throughout its 136 year history. The city's image as a dynamic port town where everything is possible is based on the age-old Dutch values of freedom and trading savvy. You can still find these characteristics in today's modern IJmuiden!

With music, plenty of activities and a cultural information fair, the festival's participating organisations are offering visitors an impressive events calendar suitable for everyone. IJmuiden's history was shaped by the turbulent waters of the North Sea, with fishermen braving the waves to earn their living. The town's hardy pioneers dug through the dunes to construct the North Sea Canal, creating a waterway for the shipping industry in the area. But these pioneers also built a village on the shifting sands of the dunes, attracting settlers from other Dutch coastal towns. Fishermen and factory workers made the new city of IJmuiden a bustling place, with 40 pubs located just around Willemsplein Square, sailors don't have to go far to quench their thirst.

With its principles of hard work, freedom and tolerance, IJmuiden has always been a magnet for businesses, artists, philosophers, free-thinkers, scientists and other creative minds from all over the world. And that's something the city wants to share with festival goers. Besides having a rich history, IJmuiden has all it needs to meet its promising future. As a windy city, the town is not only a perfect place for fishing and shipping, but also for the wind farms that are being built out at sea. It's also a science city, with Wageningen University exploring sustainable management, use and exploitation of the sea at its Research Centre, located behind the fishing port.

During two full days over the last weekend in August, the IJmuiden Harbour Festival reveals IJmuiden in all its present-day glory, more than a century after its founding near the locks of the North Sea Canal.