The 2025 edition of the Redhead Days festival this weekend includes music, food trucks and workshops tailored to particular needs of redheads.
TILBURG, Netherlands — 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, from makeup explainers to skin cancer prevention.
Organizers expect the three-day event to draw several thousand attendees from some 80 countries.
Elounda Bakker, a Dutch festival veteran of 15 years, played cards with a group of redheaded friends from across the world who meet together every year at the festival.
“I came out of curiosity mostly, just to see what it would be like not to stand out in the crowd,” said Bakker, 29. “It was really an interesting first experience and I just keep coming because I met some really nice friends here.”
Magician Daniel Hank traveled six hours from Germany to join the festivities, now proud to flaunt the hair that made him the target of bullying when younger.
“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.
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.
The tradition emerged two decades ago when 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 meetup 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 said.
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A military judge sentenced Pvt. Deron Gordon to over six years in prison for sexually assaulting a college student.
JOINT BASE LEWIS-MCCHORD, Wash. — A Joint Base Lewis-McChord soldier who sexually assaulted a college student in the barracks in 2024 was sentenced to more than six years in prison Friday.
A military judge sentenced Pvt. Deron Gordon, 20, to six years and three months in prison after he pleaded guilty to one specification each of sexual assault, abusive sexual contact and as a principal to indecent recording.
Gordon was previously charged with additional crimes, but those were dismissed as part of the plea agreement.
Gordon is one of four soldiers who were charged in in connection to the sexual assault of a college student, who is now a commissioned Army officer, in October 2024.
When Gordon pleaded guilty, he said that he and another soldier followed the college student into a bedroom after she had been drinking with them. He said she was unstable walking into the room and when they went inside she was on the bed and not responsive.
Gordon said he and the other soldier each proceeded to have sex with her and they filmed each other sexually assaulting her on Snapchat.
As part of his sentencing, Gordon will be reduced in rank to E-1 and dishonorably discharged from the Army.
Gordon will serve the remainder of his sentencing at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. Once he is released, Gordon must register as a sex offender.
The three other soldiers who were charged in the incident are at different points in the legal process, and their cases are being treated separately.
If you or someone you know has been a victim of sexual assault, you can call the National Sexual Assault Hotline at 1-800-656-4673. Additional resources are available on the Washington State Department of Health's website.
KING 5’s Conner Board contributed to this report.
