The website on which everyone could follow King’s Day 2021 online attracted 130,000 people on the day itself. That is less than hoped. Documents requested by Omroep Brabant show that the infrastructure was designed for a maximum of two million visitors. Of those 130,000, only 20,000 people actually watched one of many streams. With the streams, the municipality of Eindhoven tried to reach people who normally do not watch King’s Day.
Due to the corona measures, King’s Day this year consisted of a live TV broadcast from the High Tech Campus in Eindhoven. In addition, eight live streams with 22 programs could be followed on a special website. This featured mainly many Eindhoven residents who, from their own neighborhood or a studio, talked about their city and their hobbies. There was also a ten-hour broadcast with performances by various artists.
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play it safe
With 130,000 visitors to the website and 20,000 people who actually watched one of the streams, the enthusiasm for the online platform was smaller than expected. Project manager Sophie van Hof-Rubens also acknowledges this: “We had hoped for more. We also wanted to reach new target groups in addition to the real ‘Orange fans’. We are a bit disappointed in this.” Although the number of two million is not realistic according to her. “Of course we didn’t expect two million, but you want to play it safe. If the site had exploded, you would not look good as a city of technology.” According to Van Hof, the hope was for about 200,000 visitors.
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The fact that no effort has been spared in building the online infrastructure is apparent from documents requested by Omroep Brabant. Security company Northwave Group from Utrecht tested the security together with the police and Microsoft was available on the day itself to solve problems. Ethical hackers also carried out ‘attacks’ on the site to see if it could withstand it. The site had to be “robust enough to accommodate hordes of people online,” according to conversation reports.
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Image of the city
The TV broadcast of the NOS attracted more attention. 1.9 million people followed the visit of the Royal family live on TV, another 1.3 million people watched via Missed Broadcast or the NPO website. Markteffect investigated how viewers thought about Eindhoven after the broadcast. 39 percent indicate that their image of the city has changed positively as a result of the King’s Day registration.
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“We were able to bring our city well into the spotlight, not only on the day itself through two well-watched NOS programs, but also in various media beforehand,” the municipality writes in the evaluation. The evaluation also shows that King’s Day turned out to be slightly cheaper than expected: the party cost not 1.7 million but 1.55 million.
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