The town of Lochristi is known for its floriculture. The municipality now wants to celebrate this with a flower and arts festival. Seven years after Ambrosiana, Ambrosiana 2.0 is staged from Friday 25 August till Sunday 27 August. It’s not a ten-day event like in 2016, but everything is packed into one festival weekend. The municipality is allocating 100,000 euros for the organisation, which even the opposition thinks is money well spent.
Floral carpets and flower displays will be on show across the town centre. Locals will also be given a foretaste of a new municipal park says councillor Hilde Baele: "Garden architects and other gardening professionals from the municipality will create a garden of the future. This will also signal the start of construction of a new municipal park behind the church."
Ambrosiana 2.0 is intended to be more than just a flower festival. Lochristi wants it to be an arts festival too. Alderman Baele: "In the garden of the future there will also be insect safaris, we will do something with crazy hairstyles, there will be lots of street theatre and there will also be a crafts market."
The ornamental horticulture museum in Zaffelare is also being involved in the festivities. For transport between Lochristi and Zaffelare, Nostalbus will be involved. This is a voluntary organisation that restores historic buses. Nostalbus will operate rides using buses that are stored in De Lijn’s old depot in Lochristi, one of the organisation's bases.