Imidiwan is a two-day festival on Saturday, October 10 & Sunday, October 11. Passes for both days are available in the ticket shop.

On Saturday 10 and Sunday 11 October 2026, we present Imidiwan - Friends of the Desert. A new two-day music festival entirely dedicated to North African desert blues. Desert blues was introduced in the late 1980s by guitarist Ali Farka Touré, who managed to blend traditional music with blues in an unparalleled way. On Sunday 11 October, Songhoy Blues and Tamikrest are on the festival program.

During the festival, leading artists from Algeria, Mauritania, and Mali will take the stage. Expect captivating and psychedelic guitar lines, repetitive rhythms, and powerful stories from Imarhan, Tamikrest, Songhoy Blues, Samba Touré (who will play an ode to Ali Farka Touré), and Noura Mint Seymali, among others.

“A desert hosts us, a language unites us, a culture binds us .” This beautiful sentence, the motto of the artist Tamikrest, forms the inspiration for the festival. Imidiwan means 'my friends' in the Tamashek language spoken in a part of the Sahara. The festival is colorful, diverse, and enriching: not only is the music central, but also the stories of the artists and the Tuareg nomad people.

In addition to special performances on both days, there is also an in-depth fringe program on Saturday including a keynote, a film screening, and a market with matching food and drinks, and on Sunday a special jam session with guest artists to bring the festival to a festive close. The line-up for this will be announced soon.

Part of the program travels on to SPOT/Groningen on October 11 for a satellite edition of the festival at the Oosterpoort.