In August 2019, the first Dutch democracy festival took place near the city of Nijmegen, inspired on similar festivals in Scandinavian countries. The festival was free of charge for visitors, and was criticized for costing al lot of taxpayers' money. No attention was given to sortition. In the fall of 2022, the festival returned under the name GrondFest: 'a place for experimenting with ideas on democracy and society', and was now located within the city of Nijmegen itself. This time sortition, or at least citizens' assemblies, did get attention: Eva Rovers lectured and answered questions, as well as political scientist Kristof Jacobs, one of the main researchers of citizens' assemblies in the Netherlands.