Following the new COVID measures in the Netherlands, festival organizer ID&T, known for events such as Mysteryland, Sensation, Milkshake and Decibel Outdoor, announced on Friday evening that it will initiate summary proceedings against the Dutch government. Today, ID&T announced that over 30 other parties, including the organizers behind F1 Dutch Grand Prix Zandvoort, DGTL and Don’t Let Daddy Know, are joining them as co-plaintiffs.
The hearing will take place on Friday, July 16 at 10am CEST, at the court in The Hague.
After lifting a big part of the restrictions on events, cultural venues, and audiences at professional sports competitions and sports and youth activities 2 weeks ago, the Dutch government announced last Friday that at least until August 13th all visitors have to be seated and only a limited number of visitors are allowed. This consequently leads to many cancellations of events.
The parties disagree with the recent decision the Dutch government made to categorically ban non-seated public events and see the decision as carelessly prepared and incorrect. The united organizers ask the judge in preliminary relief proceedings for permission to allow public events that meet the Fieldlab conditions. These conditions for organizing a safe event, without social distancing, have been drawn up on the basis of carefully conducted research and extensive experiments that Fieldlab Events carried out earlier this year, and have also been endorsed by the Dutch government.
Ritty van Straalen, CEO of ID&T: “We are overwhelmed by the support we received from our visitors, artists and partners in the past days. The fact that so many parties in the market are joining us reflects perfectly what the impact is on the entire public events industry.”
Imre van Leeuwen, Managing Director at F1 Dutch Grand Prix Zandvoort: “As a large-scale sports event, we deal with a long lead time and large financial risks. For us it is also inexplicable internationally to not have clarity of the conditions under which we can organize the event three weeks prior to the event. It’s even more disappointing that, despite the good work of Fieldlab Events and the high vaccination rate the Netherlands has achieved, we may not be able to make the event a huge success with the whole world watching.”
Joop Soree, CEO of The Event Warehouse, organizer of one of the biggest pop festivals of the Netherlands Paaspop and WiSH Outdoor, among others: “We join ID&T and the imminent summary proceedings because of the enormous (financial) consequences caused by the lack of clarity. We need to know where we, and the events industry, stand.”
Parties that have joined are: 24-uurs Solexrace, 4PM Entertainment, A Venue Events, Absolutely Fresh, Apenkooi, Apex Event Productions, BeetjeDansen Events, BZB, Chasing the Hihat, De Wijze Uil, E&A, Elevations Events, Feestfabriek, First Vision, HockeyLoverz, Intents Events, Life Over Future, Minority Events, Nomads, One of the Guys, Par-T, Paaspop, Rebirth Events, Rotterdam Dance Parade, Sensation Events, Sportvibes, Thuishaven Events, Toffler, Trees of Live, UDC, and ZeeZout.
Photo via RUDGR