# Design & Architecture
Abandoned quay
Rotterdam Architecture Month 2025: Schiemond in the spotlight
After a year of silence, the Rotterdam Pride Festival is making its long-awaited comeback this fall. Mark Saturday, September 27, 2025 in your calendar with a rainbow marker, because Willemsplein will once again be coloured in all shades of the rainbow.
The festival is the festive conclusion of Rotterdam Pride Week, which runs from September 19 to 28.
This year, the organization is in the hands of Bureau Vermaeck, which is working with various Rotterdam partners from the LGBTQIA+ community to create a festival that not only celebrates, but also connects. “Rotterdam Pride Festival is back. Because it has to be. Because it belongs,” says Eva van der Vegt, director of Bureau Vermaeck. “A city like Rotterdam – with all its strength, diversity and courage – cannot exist without a place where everyone can be themselves.”
The previous edition took place in June 2023, in honor of the tenth anniversary. In 2024, it remained quiet, due to financial challenges at the then organization. But Rotterdam did not let it rest. Bureau Vermaeck took the initiative in the summer of 2024 to breathe new life into the festival. With success.
Rotterdam Pride Festival is much more than a celebration of the end of Pride Week. It is an essential platform for visibility, encounters and solidarity. A place where stories come together, where differences are celebrated, and where the city shows its most inclusive side. Or, as alderman Faouzi Achbar puts it: “Rotterdam is a city for everyone. That means that there must be room for all Rotterdammers to be themselves.”
Rotterdam Pride Festival can count on the support of the municipality of Rotterdam, Rotterdam Festivals and partners such as Unilever and Eneco this year. The organisation also invites other companies – large and small – to participate. For example, via the Diversity Business Club, an accessible way to contribute to a more inclusive Rotterdam.
A Pride Festival in Rotterdam is therefore not self-evident. It is the result of collaboration, involvement and the conviction that a city only really comes alive when everyone feels at home there. And that is what we celebrate. On 27 September, on Willemsplein - all together!
