A behind-the-scenes look into visa processes for Le Guess Who? 2024

As we near the start of Le Guess Who? 2024, we’d like to share the behind-the-scenes struggles and frustrations we are experiencing in trying to obtain visas for the artists we’ve invited to Utrecht.

At Le Guess Who?, our focus and dedication has long been on developing a diverse and inclusive program, also through extensive guest curation that deepens our ties to international artists. The current realities make it clear though that this is becoming ever more difficult.

Our working ethos has offered us quite some insight into the processes and organizations that govern visa distribution, with stories and encounters that are almost difficult to believe. 

In order to play LGW, we’ve had artists travel for days to neighboring countries because there was no visa office in their own, only to be turned away, and told to return another time for the obscure excuse of unspecified missing paperwork. 

Some artists try for appointments on embassy websites that malfunction when an artist’s name doesn’t fit the typical Western format (Name, Surname), blocking the entire process. We’ve encountered embassies which accept only calls from a local phone number (impossible to do from The Netherlands), and had denial after denial mentioning there wasn’t a clear enough reason for the travel, even with official invitation letters from both the festival and the city of Utrecht.

Imagine with this context in mind, that an average Dutch person can travel to almost any country at will, obtaining a visa with a few mouse clicks at most, and sometimes as an afterthought, upon arrival at the airport. 

We have no special department at LGW for the added workload that comes with getting artists to The Netherlands from beyond the Schengen. No one at our organization has special training for this task, just years of trial, error and dedication. All the same, this has become an almost daily headache over the last months.

This is to say nothing of the pressure and added costs we encounter at the very last minute, requiring replacements for cancellations, rebooking of flights and hotels, and the immense stress load for both artists and organization. Very little exists in terms of information and transparency into the process, and there is no accountability for the decisions being rendered, often seemingly at random.

To suggest that this is random, however, would simply be irresponsible. It is impossible not to observe the places these artists are coming from, which are being denied entry into The Netherlands. Egypt, Lebanon, Pakistan, Palestine, Morocco…

Shamefully, even Aftab Sr. – father of Grammy winner and Le Guess Who? curator Arooj Aftab – was rejected on the grounds that his scheduled performance at LGW with his daughter did not illustrate clear enough grounds for entering the country. Imagine the cultural loss of everyone who would have seen this unique and historical performance. 

The loss, to be certain, is ours. 

In times of increased divide, in The Netherlands as well as worldwide, LGW have doubled down on our own efforts toward creating the most diverse and far reaching program yet, making clear that we do not share, and refuse to reflect, any racial and cultural biases.

We always try to stay positive and are immensely proud of the upcoming lineup. But among it are still many uncertainties for artists, up to the very last minute. Even worse, having seen firsthand how these systems operate, we see no indication of the intention to change them – which doesn’t bode well for the future.

In short: inclusivity in Dutch culture is an illusion, if The Netherlands doesn’t open the door.