Find the peacock at the festival

Report Regenboog Festival - June 5, 2025

I'm a peacock, looking for a peacock. De Regenboog's department that pairs buddies and buddies with lonely Amsterdam residents is handing out animal pictures to festival visitors. They challenge you to find someone with the same picture. If you find one, you get a free cup of coffee or tea where you can start a conversation. A buddy match, in short.

With my peacock, I make my way through the crowd and immediately run into a retired former employee. She doesn't have an animal yet, but that doesn't get in the way of a chat. She still collects clothes, in her street. Every now and then she drives to AMOC with it and that is how she keeps the contact warm. It will take her a while to get to the place where she gets her animal, because there are many acquaintances on the grounds.

One of the partygoers has brought his work with him. When his bag accidentally falls open, deposit bottles and cans roll out. At the festival, there is little for him to earn; everyone uses reusable cups. So he chooses to relax with some acquaintances. He is a giraffe.

Further along, two people are watching from a distance. Not peacocks, but clearly curious. They seem to want to be invited. They appear to be the parents of a new colleague. They've come to see where their son works, and they like what they see. Especially that you don't know who is a volunteer, participant or employee here. Their son can continue to work here, is their conclusion.

In an RV just outside the hall, Partner and Family Support completed a couple of speed therapy sessions. "I just had a conversation with someone who says they've been resuscitated 36 times," one coach says. They are not used to such stories; they primarily counsel loved ones and they face very different kinds of problems. For that very reason, it was a refreshing session.

I take a step back and the rest of the audience also diverges for a man on a scooter. His hurried, hard-to-follow story fits perfectly with the vital and quirky way he moves through the crowd. Before I can ask him about his animal, he has disappeared.

Because it is raining a bit, I walk down the hall, past booths and the coffee corner, indispensable to a Regenboog activity. Someone from Work and Activation sighs, tired but satisfied, "I asked for twenty gifts for the raffle and they brought sixty. How involved they are."

A protest march against housing shortages moves through the banquet hall with freshly painted signs. It briefly interrupts the pub quiz, but no one cares. A good statement is part of it.

At the quiz sits a man with a notebook full of words. They seem to be associations to what is going on around him. He doesn't seek contact. I leave him alone in his world framed A4-sized.

On stage appears Mayor Femke Halsema. She feels a bit awkward with her formal talk. So she moves speech and lectern aside and addresses the audience directly. She bows deeply to everyone's efforts and hands Hans Wijnands an anniversary medal for fifty years of humanity in Amsterdam.

I didn't find another peacock today. But neither was it necessary to get in touch.

In the hall is still the EU maze, which I saved until last. There the rawness of street life intrudes. The dark, noisy corridor past bureaucracy and frayed edges depicts why The Regenboog will be sorely needed for the next fifty years. Here I did not need a peacock, but a big, soft teddy bear. And I think I've seen that walking around here somewhere at this festival.

Text: Joost Slis | Photo: Merlin Michon