Yet some visitors to the twelve-day Delft Fringe Festival 2026 make a sport of spotting all the participating artists. Artistic director Tamara Griffioen (33) and new executive director Jeroen Dijkstra (38) are naturally among the frontrunners. Ahead of the 15th anniversary in 2027, they explain how the festival is growing in significance and how artists are grappling with themes that sit somewhere between hope and fear.
"Unusual venues in hidden locations challenge artists to forge an intimate, personal relationship with their audience."
Anyone walking out of Delft Central Station at the end of May cannot miss the beating heart of the festival at The Social Hub, just a short stroll from the city centre. Both casual day-trippers and dedicated festival-goers will find everything there about the 290 events across the twelve festival days. From that hub, the Delft Fringe Festival (DFF) spreads its wings across the entire city — this year once again featuring surprising and intimate venues, such as an old cigar factory tucked away behind a long alleyway in the centre, and a creative hub in the Schiehallen, on the grounds of the former Dutch Cable Factory.
"My predecessor Roel Funcken, together with the team, built DFF into a nationally acclaimed festival for emerging artists in the performing arts," says Jeroen Dijkstra (b. 1988, Rotterdam), who has been the festival's new executive director since December. "With my background in applied arts and design, I want to enrich the festival further and offer young talent even more opportunities. I have a particular fascination for unusual, hidden locations — places that bring artists and audiences closer together in an intimate, personal atmosphere."
As a programme manager at Dutch Design Week in Eindhoven, Dijkstra is constantly on the lookout for unique venues where the festival can come to life. "In Delft, that search is considerably easier: the city is bursting with remarkable places, and everyone is willing to make them available. Our ambition is to involve Delft's outer neighbourhoods in the festival in the future as well."
Tamara Griffioen, artistic director of DFF since 2023, can tell from the high number of applications (around 360) just how much the need for the festival as a platform is growing. "Not only young talent, but also mid-career artists without structural funding are finding it increasingly difficult to perform in front of audiences. They are therefore turning to festivals like DFF. That heightens the responsibility of the selection panel, through which I choose the 25 most compelling applications. It remains difficult to have to disappoint so many artists."
Griffioen sees projects centred on urgent themes, such as struggles with the Netherlands' colonial past, uncertainty surrounding the rise of AI, and the growing emphasis on (in)security. "I notice that artists are balancing between hope and fear, whether they work in music, dance, theatre, circus, or cabaret. Climate change, heat stress, the threat of war, the refugee crisis — current affairs regularly resurface during DFF. But even if the themes are often challenging, the way in which artists give them shape is not only colourful and personal, but also hopeful."
As an example, Griffioen mentions a theatre-maker from the former Yugoslavia who has woven the experiences of five veterans from the Dutchbat battalion into a production about the near-impossible mission of protecting Srebrenica as a safe haven during the Bosnian War, more than thirty years ago. She also highlights a children's show about the courage to dare to fail, and a solo cabaret piece about carrying on after the loss of a fellow artist.
Both have other professional commitments alongside their part-time work for DFF. Dijkstra works as a programme-maker for Dutch Design Week and runs the creative studio the DIRT together with Florine van Rees, where they organise events and handle scenography for cultural institutions and fashion brands.
Griffioen has also been the artistic director of Theater Ins Blau in Leiden for the past two years. From that position, she knows how difficult it is for young artists to move on to more stages. "For national visibility, performing at DFF is enormously important. The festival was founded in 2011 to celebrate the arts. And celebrate we shall: next year marks the 15th edition. Bring on the exciting ideas for the anniversary!"
Picture Tamara: Alyssa van Heyst
Picture Jeroen: Florine van Rees
