Bryan Raets

Podium Het Garnizoen is the main stage for theatre, music and cabaret in Harderwijk, a town on the Veluwemeer in the province of Gelderland. It operates as a combined theatre and pop venue, which means the programme moves between seated evenings of cabaret and drama and standing concerts by touring bands. The building was formerly known as Theater Harderwijk, and local sources describe it as one of the town's principal theatres, with a varied schedule of shows spread across the year. The venue sits in a historic setting, something that visitors to Harderwijk tend to notice, since the town's old centre carries a long past as a garrison and Hanseatic town. The name Het Garnizoen, meaning "the garrison", points to that military heritage. Reviews of the place mention that it has been renovated and is considered a pleasant room to visit, though the sources do not go into detail about the layout or the number of halls. On the music side, Podium Het Garnizoen acts as a regular stop for Dutch acts on national tours. The psychedelic southern rock band DeWolff, for instance, has listed the venue among its tour dates, alongside other regional theatres such as the Rabotheater in Steenwijk. That gives a fair idea of the level it works at: a mid sized regional stage that attracts established names rather than only local newcomers. Together with the cabaret and theatre bookings, this makes it a general purpose cultural address for the town and its surroundings, where an evening out can mean anything from a stand up show to a full rock set.