What's On in Amsterdam in September

As always, there’s a wide range of events taking place in Amsterdam over September including several new and well established arts festivals, as well as two of the most important amateur sporting competitions in the country. Read on to find out more.
FRIDAY 1st – SUNDAY 10th

ART | Four Seasons Art Fair
📅 Thursday August 31st to Sunday September 3rd
Dozens of local and international artists will exhibit their work at this brand new art fair in Amsterdam’s eastern docklands. The fair’s organisers will also award several prizes at the end of the event to the three best individual artworks.
Tickets: €5
📍Loods 6, KNSM-Laan 143, Amsterdam +31 20 418 2020
PHOTOGRAPHY | FOAM Talent – A Group Exhibition of 20 Emerging Artists
📅 Friday September 1st to Sunday November 12th
FOAM will present photographic work from 20 individual artists throughout Autumn 2017. Work by these participants will also appear in FOAM magazine’s Talent Issue which will launch alongside the exhibition on August 31st.
Tickets: €11
📍FOAM, Keizersgracht 609, Amsterdam +31 20 551 6500
MUSIC | ZeeZout Festival
📅 Saturday September 2nd
ZeeZout electronic music festival will return this September for its third edition. This year the festival has moved to Blijburg beach in Amsterdam’s eastern Ijburg district and will feature many groundbreaking artists from the international dance scene.
Tickets: €39
SPORTS | Amsterdam City Swim
📅 Saturday September 3rd
Every September, hundreds of brave souls dive into Amsterdam’s canals and swim two kilometres through the waterways in order to raise money for charity. This city swim begins outside the National Maritime Museum and ends on Keizersgracht canal.
Tickets: free
CULTURE | Amsterdam Open Monuments Days
📅 Saturday September 9th to Sunday September 10th
During two days in September, scores of historical buildings around Amsterdam open to the public and allow visitors to enter usually restricted areas. Events also take place in many of these landmarks over the weekend and professional staff will be on hand to guide visitors.
Tickets: free
📍 Locations throughout Amsterdam
MONDAY 11th – SUNDAY 17th

THEATER | Amsterdam Fringe Festival
📅 Thursday September 7th to Sunday September 17th
Over thirty venues in Amsterdam will host the city’s Fringe festival this year and present pieces created by avant-garde artists working within theater and dance. There will be many English language and non-verbal performances at the festival that cater to non-Dutch speaking audiences.
Tickets: varies by event
📍Locations throughout Amsterdam
FILM | West Beach Film Festival
📅 Thursday 14th September to Sunday 24th September
A selection of classic and modern movies will be screened outdoors in Amsterdam’s Sloterpas park this September during the 13th edition of West Beach Film Festival. The festival’s program is particularly diverse and includes films such as Ex-Machina, Bridge Over the River Kwai and Leviathan.
Tickets: free
SPORTS | Dam tot Damloop
📅 Saturday September 16th to Sunday September 17th
During this annual road running event, thousands of amateur and professional athletes race between Amsterdam’s city centre to Zaandam. Several other smaller competitions take place over the weekend including kids’ race and a night time sprint.
Tickets: free
ART | Carlos Motta – the Crossing
📅 Saturday September 16th to Sunday January 7th
This Autumn, the Stedelijk will present a two-part solo exhibition by Columbian visual artist Carlos Motta that recounts eleven LGBTI+ individuals’ experiences of the European Refugee Crisis. The installations will feature video portraits and historical artifacts borrowed from several Dutch museums.
Tickets: €17.50
📍 The Stedelijk Museum, Museumplein 10, Amsterdam +31 20 573 2911
FILM | Apichatpong Weerasethakul & Cao Guimarães
📅 Saturday September 16th to Sunday December 3rd
For their Autumn program, the Filmmuseum will present a joint exhibition featuring work by Apichatpong Weerasethakul and Cao Guimarães. Both artists work within film art and have created many groundbreaking videos, series and installations that explore a wide range of subjects related to existential and socio-political issues.
Tickets: €13
📍 Eye Filmmusuem, IJpromenade 1, Amsterdam +31 20 589 1400
MONDAY 18th – SUNDAY 24th

TECHNOLOGY | Odorama: Animal Smell
📅 Thursday September 21st
As part of their ongoing series of workshops on the importance of odours, Mediamatic will organise a lecture in September that examines the relation between humans’ and animals’ sense of smell. Several experts will guide the talks and introduce their olfactory research.
Tickets: €10
📍 Mediamatic, Dijksgracht 6, Amsterdam +31 20 638 9901
PHOTOGRAPHY | Unseen Photo Fair
📅 Friday September 22nd to Sunday September 24th
Unseen takes places annually at the tail end of Amsterdam’s week-long photography festival fotoweek. The fair gathers together scores of industry professionals and showcases work created by talented photographers in order to explore contemporary developments within the medium.
Tickets: €17.50
📍 Westergasfabriek, Pazzanistraat 33, Amsterdam +31 20 586 0710
MUSIC | EMA + DUBAIS
📅 Friday September 22nd
American drone luminary EMA is set to play de Nieuwe Anita this September around one month after dropping her latest album Exile In The Outer Ring. Lo-fi electronic artist DUBAIS will provide support.
Tickets: €8
📍 de Nieuwe Anita, Frederik Hendrikstraat 111, Amsterdam +31 20 774 4922
PHOTOGRAPHY | André Kertész – Mirroring Life
📅 Friday September 15th to Wednesday January 10th
Throughout Autumn and early winter, FOAM will present a comprehensive retrospective of Hungarian avant-garde photographer André Kertész‘s early work. Kertész produced many highly regarded photographic series whilst living in Hungary, Paris and New York during the beginning of the twentieth century and influenced many famous artists including Henri Cartier-Bresson.
Tickets: €11
📍FOAM, Keizersgracht 609, Amsterdam +31 20 551 6500
THEATER | No Longer Without You
📅 Friday September 22nd to Sunday September 25th
During this English language performance, an elderly Turkish mother and her liberal daughter discuss their different, yet closely related ways of life. The play has already received considerable praise for its steadfast portrayal of modern familial relationships.
Tickets: €16.50
📍Stadsschouwburg, Leidseplein 26, Amsterdam +31 20 624 2311
MONDAY 25th – SATURDAY 1st

DANCE | Side A: Split into One
📅 Thursday September 28th to Sunday October 1st
Nederlands Dans Theater 1 will perform the first part of their latest series in Amsterdam’s Schouwburg this September. The company is recognised as a leading force within contemporary dance and has produced many groundbreaking shows.
Tickets: €35
📍Stadsschouwburg, Leidseplein 26, Amsterdam +31 20 624 2311
FILM | Camera Japan
📅 Friday September 29th to Sunday October 1st
As its name suggests, this annual festival focuses exclusively on movies, photography, music and other cultural products from Japan. Before heading to Amsterdam, the festival launches in Rotterdam and stays in the city between September 21st to 24th.
Tickets: TBA
📍Filmtheater Kriterion, Roetersstraat 170, Amsterdam +31 20 623 1708
MUSIC | 7 Layers Festival
📅 Saturday September 30th to Sunday October 1st
During this weekend long festival, twenty up-and-coming and famous singer songwriters will perform sets at venues around Amsterdam. Paradiso will organise these events alongside several other Amsterdam-based musical initiatives.
Tickets: €30
📍Locations throughout Amsterdam
MUSIC | Return of Headhunterz
📅 Saturday September 30th
Dutch electronic music icon Headhunterz will play at the largest concert venue in Amsterdam, the Ziggo Dome, in late September. Headhunterz recently announced that he would be returning to his roots and start to focus once again on Hardstyle dance music.
Tickets: €30
📍Ziggo Dome, De Passage 100, Amsterdam +31 900 2353663
TECHNOLOGY | wASH Exhibition
📅 Saturday September 9th to Sunday October 8th
For their latest exhibition, Mediamatic has allowed designer Caroline Jacobs to create organic laundry detergent from waste material produced by the organisation’s ETEN restaurant. To prove her detergent’s strength, Jacobs will display previously stained cloths that have been washed in the solution inside Mediamatic.
Tickets: free
📍 Mediamatic, Dijksgracht 6, Amsterdam +31 20 638 9901
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