- Title: Music festival in Belgian city of Ghent draws large crowds
- Date: 19th July 2017
- Summary: VARIOUS OF FEMALE STUDENTS DRINKING AT A BAR BY THE STAGE (SOUNDBITE) (English) 21 YEAR OLD SPANISH EXCHANGE STUDENT IN GHENT, MARIA-JULIA LOPEZ, SAYING: "It's going great. The festival is amazing and not only that, but in every stage you can listen different kinds of music. So if your thing is jazz, you can choose between jazz, pop, rock, latin music, so that's awesome. I think it's awesome." VARIOUS OF PEOPLE DRINKING AT A BAR BY THE CANAL (SOUNDBITE) (Dutch) 23 YEAR-OLD STUDENT FROM ANTWERP VISITING THE FESTIVAL WITH FRIENDS, DAAN UYTTERLINDE, SAYING: "We've just got here, we've come from Antwerp and we've just arrived. But already for future years we'll know that it's really nice here, good music, the atmosphere is really great as well, such lovely people. It's perfect." VARIOUS OF PEOPLE DRINKING AT A BAR BY THE CANAL PEOPLE WALKING ON THE STREET IN THE CITY CENTRE BOATS PASSING UNDER EMPTY MAIN STAGE, BUILT OVER THE CANAL
- Embargoed: 2nd August 2017 14:50
- Keywords: Festival Ghent live music singing entertainment social bars Flanders
- Location: GHENT, BELGIUM
- City: GHENT, BELGIUM
- Country: Belgium
- Topics: Arts / Culture / Entertainment,Music,Human Interest / Brights / Odd News
- Reuters ID: LVA0056QDVHP5
- Aspect Ratio: 16:9
- Story Text: Known for its splendid renaissance city centre, canals and churches, the Belgian city of Ghent also hosts one of Europe's largest city festivals.
The ten-day long annual event, known locally as the Gentse Feesten, kicked off with 10 stages and over a hundred thousand people on the biggest nights, filling the squares and streets until late in the evening.
In spite of a wave of Islamic State inspired attacks in Europe and Belgium in recent years, traffic figures from local transport company De Lijn point to an increase in visitor numbers this year.
With a range of music and bars, the city goes through a daily routine of partying into the night followed by mass clean-up, before it all kicks off again the next day.
Each of the 10 stages spread in the city centre are ran by separate organisers, offering a wide range of different styles of music. One of them, ran by Jelle Terria, gives a chance to little known groups to perform in front of the afternoon public.
The festival period includes Belgium's National Day, a bank holiday, on July 21 and will end on the evening of July 23. - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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