“I was recently watching Feyenoord. That whole stadium was packed. I think that’s fantastic, but it cannot be explained that this is different from the festivals,” said Vincent Marshall at Broadcasting West. He has a nightclub in The Hague and is one of the many people joining us this afternoon. He had to go to Rotterdam for that; in The Hague, the demonstration was previously banned.
‘Camping Formula 1 is also a festival’
“If I get questions about it, I really can’t explain it anymore. The football stadiums are filled and Formula 1 was of course the straw that broke the camel’s back,” says Eindhoven night mayor Siem Nozza at Broadcasting Brabant. “That Formula 1 campsite will soon have 25,000 visitors a day. In principle, that’s just a festival. That’s very okay, there are few risks. We just have to continue that line.”
Like many others, Nozza emphasizes that experiments with field labs have been successful, especially at festivals, in which every visitor was tested several times. He therefore does not understand why the experiences gained then are not being applied now. “If you open again on September 1, you can at least save the tail of the festival season,” says another activist.
‘We also want to work’
“Less jokes, more house”, reads one of the banners in Groningen. One of the organizers there is Night Mayor Chris Garrit. He sees to his satisfaction that many people have come to the protest. “I didn’t count them, but it’s good,” he says at RTV North. “This is the sound we want to make. All those cars, all those organizations, all those young people who are now being discriminated against.”
“There is a kind of inequality that we protest against,” Garrit continues. “It’s not about viruses or wappies. We also want to work. Some are allowed to do that if it’s called sport. But if you do fun things like culture, it’s not allowed again.”
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