Fruit Corso Festival of Netherlands

Fruit Corso Festival of Netherlands

Every year on the 11th, 12th and 13th of September, a festival called "Fruit Corso (means Fruit Parade)" is held to celebrate the harvest of the Fruit of all the Villages in Tiel, Netherlands.
 
It includes a Parade of Cars which are decorated with Fruits. A Unique Event whereby Fruits, Vegetables and Seeds are used to make Beautiful Floats.

The Fruitcorso annually attracts the attention of more than 100.000 visitors 

and is thereby one of Netherlands biggest events.

The Fruitcorso has, besides the improvement of the tourism in this area

a very important social and cultural function.

History

The godfathers of the Fruitcorso Tiel are Bernhard Bruggeman and Joop van Hesteren.

The first Fruitcorso took place in 1961 and nine villages in this region attended.

Soon it became a matter of honour for all the villages in the surrounding of Tiel to make a float as well.

They established Corso Associations and the designers tried really hard to make the best design.

Soon the Fruitcorso has developed itself to a big and unique event

by which the participants try to take the wind of each other’s sails.

Explanation Foundation 4-Stromenland

Foundation 4-stromenland is an organisation directed by volunteers with a relatively small board.

The different tasks are divided within the board.

It is clear that an event like the Fruitcorso cannot be organised by such a small group of people.

Therefore almost all board members have formed their own committee, who, under their responsibility, perform some tasks.

These tasks partly exist of executive activities but also of policy preparation activities which are mainly focussed on following the strategy on the medium term.

There are within the Foundation 4-Stromenland, apart from about 2.000 of floats builders, several dozens of volunteers active.

Goal

The statuary goal of the Foundation 4-Stromenland is the promotion of the tourism in the ‘Rivierengebied’ (river area) on non-profit base.

To achieve this goal, the Fruitcorso is organised annually. The Fruitcorso has, except for this formal goal, also an important social function. There is a major involvement of the floats builders.

The board has therefore decided to keep the amount of floats the same or preferably increase it. This is also to make sure that there will be enough volunteers to organise the Fruitcorso in the future.

To guarantee the commercial basis and the financial continuity of the Fruitcorso on the long term the number of corso teams must be kept the same and the aim is to attract more visitors.