Spoffin OFF is the showcase part of the Spoffin Festival in Amersfoort (The Netherlands), an annual street arts festival with 25+ theatre, dance and circus companies from all over Europe. In 2024 Spoffin takes place from Friday evening, 23 August through Sunday afternoon, 25 August. Application is currently closed and will re-open from 1 January through 28 February, 2024.

Festival setup

Spoffin Festival consists of four parts:

• Spoffin IN: innovative outdoor and site-specific performances of professional artists (on invitation only)
• Spoffin OFF: showcase of emerging professional street artists (selection after application)
• Spoffin PRO: international meeting of promoters, festival programmers, agencies, journalists and other professionals in the field of arts in public space (on invitation only)
• Spoffin LAB: a residency project supporting young theatre artists who are in the process of finishing a new project created for public space (streets, squares, parks, etc.). Selection after applicaton.

Application deadline Spoffin OFF

You can apply to participate in the Spoffin OFF program from 1 January until 28 February 2024. A committee consisting of three festival programmers under supervision of artistic director Alfred Konijnenbelt will thoroughly study all the applications and make the selection. Final decisions will be made in March and are formalized in a contract.

Selection criteria

The first selection will be mainly based upon artistical criteria: originality, expressiveness, professionalism and whether the work interacts with public space and the audience. Furthermore we have a strong preference for productions that are plug-and-play (self-supporting), can easily travel and use little or no text. Practical criteria like group size and travel costs can further influence the final selection.

Spoffin will do its outmost to organize an exceptionally good OFF programme, as a consequence the quality level of the selection is high. Please note that only a limited number (10-15) of artists/groups can participate in the Spoffin OFF program, due to limitations in space, time, production capacity and budget.

Spoffin offers:

• Chance to win the VKZ Spoffin OFF Award worth € 2,500
• All the money raised ‘on the hat’ belongs to the artist, our volunteers help you with collecting.
• Reasonable compensation of travel costs
• Good hotel accommodation (based on double rooms)
• Delicious and healthy meals
• Quality meetings with theatre professionals (Spoffin PRO) and other artists.
• Outdoors performance venue meeting your technical needs
• High profile publicity in print, online and elsewhere
• Nice ambience

You offer Spoffin:

• Your time and effort to showcase an exceptional good performance at Spoffin!
• Everything you need to perform (including all light and sound equipment, rigging, etc.), apart from the venue and the power