Redheads gather in Netherlands for festival celebrating their hair colour: "I don't feel alone"

Redheads gather in Netherlands for festival celebrating their hair colour: "I don't feel alone"
Hundreds of people born with red hair met up in the Netherlands this weekend to celebrate being ginger at the annual Redhead Days Festival in the southern town of Tilburg. Redheads make up between one and two per cent of the world's population, with a higher frequency of between two and six percent in people with Northern or Northwestern European ancestry.

Scottish Liam Hunter, 30, said that attending the three-day festival made him feel better about himself. Like many redheads, Hunter said he was bullied as a child because of the colour of his hair
[29/08, 7:40 pm] b: "I don't feel alone anymore. I feel together, a part of something," he said, looking out over the festival grounds. "Being here, I'm completed."

According to organizers, some 5,000 redheads from different countries visited the festival, which offered workshops on painting, make-up and skincare tips, photo shoots, music and speed meet events. The Dutch festival started by accident after organizer and amateur painter Bart Rouwenhorst placed an ad in a regional newspaper in 2005 for 15 models with red hair and 150 people responded.