The southern Dutch city of Tilburg is seeing more color than usual this weekend, as thousands of redheads from all over the world gather in the Netherlands for a once-a-year festival to celebrate their flaming locks.

The 2025 edition of the Redhead Days festival includes music, food trucks and workshops tailored to particular needs of redheads - including make up explainers and skin cancer prevention.

Organizers expect over several thousand attendees from some 80 countries to join during the three-day event.

The festival is free and open to all, with the exception of the group photo on Sunday.

That event is restricted to “natural” redheads.

The 2013 edition set a Guinness World Record for the “largest gathering of people with natural red hair” with 1,672 people posing for the group photo.

Two decades ago, Dutch artist Bart Rouwenhorst put out a call for 15 red-haired models for an art project in a local newspaper.

He got ten times the response he was expecting and brought the group together for a photo.

The project got so much attention, Rouwenhorst organized a similar meet up the following year and has continued to oversee the festival as it has expanded into the multiday event it is today.

“The festival is really amazing because all the people, they resemble each other and they feel like it’s a family,” he told AP.

Magician Daniel Hank traveled six hours from Germany to join the festivities.

He says that while his coloring made him the target of bullying when he was younger, now his red hair is an asset.

I think it’s really easy to recognize me because there are not that many people with a red beard, there are not many guys with long red hair,” he said.

AP video by Aleksandar Furtula