Brussels parks hosted more than 600 events last year

The Belgian capital’s parks saw a busy 2022, with a total of 673 official events hosted in parks managed by Brussels Environment, compared to 1,166 in 2019 and 784 in 2021.

There were more than 1,078 applications for such events submitted, Bruzz reports.

Of those applications, 149 were rejected, 125 events were cancelled by the applicant and 131 were rejected by the Brussels Environment administration (for example, due to a lack of response from organisers).

The most popular park was Cinquantenaire (183 events), followed by King Baudouin Park in Jette (62) and Laeken Park (55).

The number of overall events is still lower than pre-pandemic years: 274 events were held in Cinquantenaire in 2019.

But King Baudouin and Laeken saw an increase over their 2019 numbers. Laeken hosted only 20 events in 2019, and King Baudouin held 25.

Other popular parks include Georges Henri Park in Woluwe-Saint-Lambert (50 events, compared to 30 in 2019) and Woluwe Park (38, compared to 31 in 2019).

While Duden Park in Forest hosted 87 events in 2019, it only saw 31 last year. Other parks that declined in popularity for events were the Bois de la Cambre (26 events in 2022 and 47 in 2019), Rouge-Clôitre in Auderghem (24 in 2022 and 47 in 2019), and Elisabeth Park in Koekelberg (19 in 2022 and 41 in 2019).

But while many events took place, the sharp drop in the number of applications compared to previous years is striking.

Pascale Hourman, spokesperson for Brussels Environment, said this is mainly due to the pandemic.

“In 2022, there were 1,078 requests to organise outdoor events, compared to 2,439 in 2021,” Hourman told Bruzz.

“This decrease is probably due to the normalisation of the health situation, resulting in fewer requests for outdoor activities.”

In terms of the most popular events held in the parks, sporting activities took the cake with 242 event, followed by festivals (100), cultural (91) and educational events (73) and film-related events such as outdoor screenings (49).