From Ton’s Week Notes for the past week:
Picking up Y after her sleepover enjoyed some live music in the garden of a random house in the neighbourhood. Today was the twice per year ‘Strolling Through The Gardens’/’Peeking In At The Neighbour’s’ event. Musicians and local bands set up in somebody’s garden and give multiple performances in the afternoon, while neighbours drop in and listen. We heard and saw a cover band perform, whose drummer turned out to be our next door neighbour.
I love everything about this.
According to Inside Rotterdam, the slash in Ton’s description of the event represents a merger of two festivals:
The annual festival Gluren bij de Buren (Peeking at the Neighbors) has been shifted to summer this edition, to join forces with the summer equivalent: Struinen in de Tuinen (Strolling through Gardens). Thereby the performances this year will be moved from the living rooms to the gardens of participants.
Olivia and I have a long-unrealized plan to hold film screenings in our back yard for our neighbours; this is inspiration to think more broadly about how a multi-backyard interconnected festival, by and for neighbours (rather than tourists) might be a lovely idea for Charlottetown.
Comments
Yes, it's a lot of fun, brings a lot of pleasant atmosphere, and is a good way to connect neighbours. The performances aren't restricted to music, can include acting, reading by poets/authors, dance etc, though most are music.
A few years ago a door-to-door overview of everything in Amersfoort was distributed https://www.zylstra.org/blog/2018/07/garden-jaunts/ so people could plan their routes. The timing of the performances is such that in between you have time to walk / cycle to the next one of your choice in someone else's garden or living room.
From what I gather from the organisations website (they do this in over 30 municipalities around NL it seems), they have an application path for hosts (and their preferences/venue affordances) and one for performers (and their needs), and then match them up.
This sounds wonderful and I know who can print signage for your backyard theatre. When we lived in Ithaca, New York, they held "Porch Fest" with musical offerings as people walked the streets or attended a specific event.