Milkshake Festival Amsterdam

Milkshake is a two-day open-air dance festival in Amsterdam's Westerpark. Two of the city's biggest clubs, Paradiso and AIR, started it in 2012 to bring club nights outdoors in the daytime. It is not a pride and not exclusively gay. It is a commercial festival with a deliberately queer-inclusive line-up and crowd, and a house rule summed up as "niets moet, alles mag" (nothing is required, everything is allowed).

You need a ticket. The city's events listing gave prices from about €47.50 a day, and the festival runs from noon to 23:00 on both days. AmsterdamNOW described nine stages a day. Westerpark is a short tram or bike ride west of the centre, so stay in town rather than near the park.

The 2026 edition was on 25 and 26 July. It overlapped with WorldPride Amsterdam, so the city was unusually full and expensive that week. AmsterdamNOW reported 25,000 visitors a day; that number comes from the festival side, and another listing gives a capacity of 15,000, so treat it as approximate. The city listing has pencilled in late July 2027 as provisional, but the festival hadn't confirmed 2027 dates when we checked.