Explore the North is a festival and production house with its own headquarters in Leeuwarden: Podium Explore.

News

New programme added to the Explore the North Festival weekend: Vieze Meisje, Drie Dagen Fris, Sheebaba, and Jonas Ringtved!

Vieze Meisje brings poetry, heavy rave, humor, and performance to our festival’s Saturday night. Life is a vieze circle – and you’re…
30 Sep 2025

Literary star comes to Leeuwarden 

The world-renowned writer and sociologist Édouard Louis is coming to our festival in November! The French writer is known for…
4 Sep 2025

Fresh line-up announcement for Explore the North Festival!

From ancient Irish traditions given a fresh twist to multivoiced freefalls: there’s a whole lot of new programming to discover!…
26 Aug 2025

About Explore the North

Explore the North is a festival and production house based at Podium Explore in Leeuwarden.

ZEA & Quinie door Marc de Fotograaf

Podium Explore

In April 2024, we christened the Westerkerk as our own ‘Podium Explore’.  This location, set in the heart of Leeuwarden, used to be just one of the most beautiful locations in our November festival, but now it is home to all the experiences we have to offer the whole year round!

Productions and projects

Together with makers of different backgrounds and expertise, we work on a number of projects with a focus on literature, language, and multilingualism.  We do this together with local, national, and international partners.

Joost Oomen, de Poezieboys en Explore the North - LORCA

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