This festival takes place during the winter holiday season. I had really high expectations as it…read morehas been quite popular for a few years. I was told that there is a free boat tour where people line up in cues to get a ride, you can walk it along the canal edge, or you can do what we did and purchase a ticket online from "Those Dam Boat Guys". Personally, the later is great and well worth it. Our boat was small and gave us an intimate experience because the boat captain told us a little about the artistic lights and were could ask questions or slow down to take pictures. The lights are illuminated after dark which during the winter is quite early in the evening. Some of the lights were small displays and some were pretty magnificent. The whole festival takes less that 2 hours to view and it really is something to see both as a tourist or a local resident. I do suggest that the best viewing is when it is not a rainy evening so that you don't have an obstructed view from the boat.

Float thru an Amsterdam canal at night, drinking a beer and looking at light art?…read more Duh. FIVE STARS!

De parade is a travelling group of theatre productions and foodtrucks visiting the larger cities…read moreduring the summer months. Food is good. I personally liked the beetroot pasta at la cantina. Juicy sisters is my long term favourite for cocktails and people watching. Out of the 4 shows in 2016, i liked the show by Alex klaassen en henry van loon best, closely followed by the lil' black arial. A warning: It is on average cheaper to go to theatre in town then visit the parade and see some shows. The ambiance is however unique and worth the higher price tag. Tip: - to save money, consider eating outside the parade and catch some of the free shows.

De Parade experience was again this year great - I am still a fan of it!…read more Luckily we had great weather that thursday evening and after some strolling around to have some food first we went to have a tapas dish with some bread, sausages, tzatiki & spreads and other kind of sangria (forgot the name unfortunately :D). They even have launched an app to inform you what kind of theatre shows there are every day. It was actually very diverse and in the end we went to a show called Art-Jan de Vries about his life, lots of drama but some funny moments as well. He was even wearing high heels and put some red lips on... Next to all these shows we also went to the awesome caroussel for only 2 euro's! I really had so much fun and we actually want to go for the 2nd time! There were 2 guys trying to pull your seating and to let you even much faster! Also a popular activity was the silent disco where everyone was queuing up! It was my first silent disco experience, but was really fun & great to do... it was more like dancing in your own world ;) Next year I will definitely go again!

PACHA - the Ibiza party legend at a festival in Amsterdam. I was in straight away. The line-up…read moreincluded The Magician, Martin Solveig, Franky Rizardo, Claptone, Sander Kleinenberg, Todd Terry and Pep&Rash to name a few. The festival ran 12:00-23:00 so you could really make a day of it. There were hammocks where you could lay back and ease yourself into the day or do the opposite and party until your feet hurt and you had to have a lie down. There was a market selling hippy/festival, clothing including furry bodywarmers which I very almost bought as it was on sale but I decided to dance more to warm up instead. No hammock for me, I was here to dance! The four stages meant that there was enough variety that you could dip in and out if you weren't feeling the tunes on the main stage or just wanted to mix it up a bit. This was a well organised festival with tokens on sale for transactions to speed up payment and have queues shorter and make it easier for bar staff and influenced party goers. They had a good range of spirits and mixers on sale, beer, water and a very impressive Toro wine stall. This had a proper selection of wine including a fantastic celeste red which one of my friends and I were super impressed with. The pizza was good and they had a range of organic and other food options including the surinamese food which smelt great but had a longer line. Being a seasoned festival goer, I was impressed with the atmosphere at this festival. There wasn't any trouble that I saw but security and staff weren't heavy-handed either. After being to many festivals across Europe, Australia and NZ I was impressed with this particularly at an outdoor dance event. Not overcrowded, friendly and well done. It was also at a great location as next to Bijmer Arena so easy to get to and from after the event. Martin Solveig was the highlight of my night this time but there were some great dance moments at the other stages. I'll be back of more next year.

Ahhhhhhhhh I'm so in love with this festival!!!!Everything was Amaaaaaaazzzzzzzzing! From the music…read moreto the ambiance. It was well organized and greatly executed. I love to go to festivals, and living in Amsterdam makes it easier for me to do so, since all the awesome ones always happen around it. It was my first time at Loveland and i must say it was love at first sight! An amazing festival if you are a lover of EDM and is always fun in big groups. Also it didn't hurt to hear Carl Cox play his most amazing set yet! It was definitely a Saturday well spent!

What an awesome experience. We went this past May and there was a line to get in before it opened…read more They were about 30 minutes late opening the event because of technical issues with the ticket scanning machines which was annoying but it was all worth it once we were in. It was huge! Food trucks everywhere, cooking classes, bean bags to relax on, music, etc. we tried a lot of food and drinks from delicious in and tonics, Asian style hot dog, salmon, mini burgers, their famous poffertjes, and fruity popsicles.

I will definitely be back again next year. What a fantastic event! Plenty of samples. Manageable…read moresize. The queues can be long for some of the restaurants but all the food was worth the wait! Standouts: A. The fruit! I'm not one to RAVE about fruit but holy cow. Brought home some mangos, the sweetest cherry tomatoes I've EVER tasted and pineapples. The lone disappointment was that the pineapple that I took home was nowhere near the sweetness of the numerous samples that I had at the festival. B. Makro. They were the big sponsor of the event and had a section displaying some of the various food and drink items that they sell. Truly effective marketing because I've never shopped at Makro but am planning my next trip already. Well done, Makro. Well done. Will happily add one more star if the variety of the restaurants that were there was greater. I'm sure this festival will only improve in 2014.