This September, The Big Queer Tour hit the streets as part of the 2025 Amsterdam Fringe Festival. What began as a canal-side walking show became a moving crowd of curiosity, laughter, and “wait, how did I not know this?” whispers. Performed to sold-out audiences, the tour turned Amsterdam into a living stage show, linking the city’s hidden queer histories to the fights, joys, and questions of right now.
Fringe is about risk, play, and making the city your stage. Starting on the cobblestones and weaving past sites like the Homomonument and the legendary Spijker Bar, our storytellers traced a line from 18th-century sodomy trials to modern-day Pride; and from secret canal-side meetups to public celebrations.
“What sets The Big Queer Tour apart isn’t only the route; it’s the conversation between then and now. We meet heroes from Amsterdam’s past and ask what their courage might demand of us today” according to Joseph Kearney, one of the shows stars. ” We see ongoing LGBTQ+ rights struggles and a world that’s seeing authoritarian shifts in too many places”.
Amsterdam Fringe champions work that doesn’t fit neatly on a proscenium. A walking performance let us collapse the distance between audience and city, turning familiar streets into scenes, and landmarks into prompts. The result felt less like “watching a show” and more like joining one.
Directed by Brandon Oelofse and performed by Joseph Kearney and Henry McMillan, The Big Queer Tour was powered by an enthusiastic audience on the move. Thank you to everyone who walked, listened, asked hard questions, and shared your own stories along the way.
In the coming months, we’re developing a digital collection drawn from the tour: short histories, archival curiosities, and contemporary reflections, so you can revisit the stories, explore the stops, and share them with others. You’ll find it on our website once it’s live.
Check back soon for updates, sneak peeks, and the first releases from the collection. If you’d like a nudge when it launches, let us know and we’ll add you to the mailing list.
We also plan to reprise the tour for World Pride in July and August 2026. Follow our Instagram for more.
