Amsterdam Tourist Information
King's Day
For the real party animal or a bargain hunter, Amsterdam is your place every year on April 30th. The famous Koninginnedag or King's Day is the biggest streetparty of the world with approximately 1 million visitors it is a orange mad house in the center of Amsterdam. Each year on Queensday, it's as if the entire Dutch nation dresses in the royal colour orange and paints the whole town orange. There is a special law for King's Day, all the city fathers do is relax laws restricting street trading for 24 hours and the enterprising Dutch community does the rest. On King's Day everything is possible, it's open slather for garage or car boot sales, everywhere on the street you'll see street performers and micro-profiteers and all bars on the corners have an outside terrace with loud music in full swing, with live music or dj's with house and techno pulling in the customers.
Vendors, many having staked out a pitch the night before, try to outdo each other in attracting punters attention by wearing the most outrageous orange costume or silly orange hat. On King's Day they eat orange cake and make orange drinks, there are orange wigs and inflatable orange crowns, very popular are also the windmills to be worn as headgear. If you forgot your orange clothes, don't worry, someone else will sell you one! The more Dutch or orange you look like, the better. Suitably stupidly attired in orange T-shirts with absurd inflatables on your head, what used to be a serious tribute to the king's house, is now turned into a culture where you should look as crazy as possible. The pictures speak for themselves. On King's Day the canals in the centre of Amsterdam are packed with boats and almost every boat sinks, because of the large number of partygoers who insist on dancing and jumping, waving enthusiastically to other orange people on the bridges. The Amstel beer and Heineken beer have orange cans and flowing freely and the volume dial of every sound system is turned up to maximum. Long live the King!