Whether the scene can be ‘on’ again, it sounds at Unmute Us in Groningen

In the city of Groningen, well-attended football and tennis tournaments took place in recent weeks, the cafes were full, the shoppers threw themselves into autumn fashion and the children went back to school. In fact, the cultural sector, especially music, festivals and the part that takes place on stage, is the only part of society that is still largely locked up. And that feels for many as unfair, or as ‘measure with double standards’, as it sounds on Saturday at the protest marches for the nightlife and the cultural sector that gathered under the name Unmute Us through ten Dutch cities.

Groningen has one of the largest parades, the largest even, as the NOS reports early in the afternoon. That is good news for the crew of the 27 music trucks that are at the start of the parade in the Stadspark. The mood there is already excellent. People in party and festival clothes talk, laugh and hug each other. Cans of beer, weed, cigarettes; it feels like a festival. Music is heard from all sides, dance in all kinds of variants.

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At the truck of dance club and festival Paradigm, a man rolls a joint in a suit with bitcoins printed on it. He has a Chinese-Indonesian restaurant on Ameland, he says, raising his thumb, and is here as a sympathizer. “The government doesn’t seem to realize how important a party is, how much money it makes, how much happiness people get from it. It is a human need to be able to discharge yourself.”

Behind him, a feminist DJ collective sprays the words ‘Riot Grrls’ onto a VW van with a spray can. That’s the name of a feminist punk movement, explains Nina, a woman in a black dress and pink sticky nails. Her work as a DJ has been on the drip for a year and a half. “We are here because our industry is bleeding to death,” she says. “We want to be able to run again, live, make people happy.”

The party and stage sector (the ‘us’ ranges from musician to food truck) already let out loud in August ‘hearing themselves’ with Unmute Us protest parades in seven Dutch cities. More than 70,000 demonstrators took part. But the outgoing cabinet has still not ‘turned on’ the party industry. And so there will be another demonstration on Saturday: more massively, in more cities and harder, if necessary. An impressive list of culture and catering organizations has joined Unmute Us. According to the organization, more than 150,000 people took to the streets on Saturday across ten cities, including 80,000 in Amsterdam. According to the municipality of Amsterdam, about 35,000 people took part in the demonstration.

Race circuit

In the Groningen parade, DJ Ivo is standing on a hardstyle car. “I work throughout the Netherlands. At a beach club in Zandvoort, four performances were canceled. From that club you can see the race track. Then you think: why is it allowed there, and not with us?” The car says ‘Less jokes, more house’. „Then you see Minister Grapperhaus [Veiligheid en Justitie, red.] make jokes on TV. It’s no joke for us.”

Smoke, roaring engines, speakers that are turned fully open: the procession starts moving. From each of the trucks comes rock-hard music, other songs and other genres – the cacophony is complete. Arno Bakker must be walking somewhere in the crowd – wild beard, ponytail – who was just standing by the side with a sousaphone, a large-sized tuba. He is a session musician with Chef’Special, comedian Micha Wertheim and live band Orgel Vreten, among others, and since corona not so much bread as siegeless. The sousaphone is a fairly loud instrument, but Bakker is impossible to hear in this violence.

The procession enters the city via Westerhaven and Brugstraat. There is dancing and singing, hands go up in the air. People are watching everywhere, along the road, on bridges, everywhere new party people join the parade. Colored smoke and confetti pour from the cars, buses and other city traffic try to squeeze through the crowd. Protest signs rise above the chaos. “Raven is life,” reads one of the signs.

At the Der Aa church, the wagon parade turns to Gedempte Zuiderdiep. Jenny, a woman with large sunglasses, is sitting on the terrace of a coffee shop. “I think it’s wonderful,” she says, as the noisy caravan passes. “I had tickets for Bert Visscher tonight, but that has been cancelled.” She thinks the sector is more than justified in protesting. A soap suds cannon is fired from one of the cars, a shower of suds flakes descends over the coffee drinkers.

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