“Le Guess Who?”: un festival “free-thinking, diverse and genre-blurring”?

The music festival ‘Le Guess Who?’ has been held in Utrecht, the Netherlands, since 2007, taking place in November. In contrast to major international festivals, focused on a single genre, ‘Le Guess Who?’ involves over 200 artists – selected by organizers and guest curators who are musicians themselves – offering diverse genres (‘boundary-crossing music from all over the world’, as described by the organizers), while fostering dialogue between music and arts through cultural projects, with a particular emphasis on ‘underrepresented sounds that are rarely heard in other places’. ‘Le Guess Who?’ primarily takes place in the halls of the Tivoli Vredenburg Auditorium and encompasses the entire city, featuring concerts and performances in clubs, churches, theaters, industrial warehouses, and markets. The festival’s ethos, designed to be inclusive, decolonizing, and experimental by its organizers, drew attendees from over 60 nations in the 2019 edition. By examining the yearly thematic programs, the aesthetic suggestions put forward by curators, visitor attendance patterns, and critical feedback, it is feasible to place ‘Le Guess Who?’ within the wider context of global music festivals and assess the correlation between the organizers’ expressed goals and the actual results obtained. This contribution aims to determine whether the festival can truly function as a model that embodies ‘free-thinking, diversity, and genre-blurring’, providing an alternative to the prevailing trend of cultural festivalization, where music serves as a platform for establishing a ‘third space’.