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\u201cIt\u2019s a shock, and it makes our permit applications feel more nerve-wracking and stressful,\u201d says Glenn Schonewille, co-owner of festival ZeeZout, which celebrates its tenth anniversary this year. \u201cWhen you see what happened, you get the feeling it could happen to anyone.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
On Saturday, May 8, festival organizer Loveland was told two hours before the gates were due to open that the City of Amsterdam had revoked the permit for Music On at sportpark Middenmeer in Oost. A tent near the main stage had received a negative assessment from the Omgevingsdienst Noordzeekanaalgebied, the regional environmental authority. Mayor Femke Halsema then decided the festival could not go ahead.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
An investigation by Het Parool found that in mid-March, Loveland had informed the Oost district that it wanted to use a different tent than originally planned. The district passed that information to the environmental authority. On Tuesday, May 6, the authority told the district it was advising against the tent that had by then already been erected, citing missing structural data and insufficient time to produce new calculations. Loveland took additional measures in an attempt to get the tent approved, but in the end those measures were not enough for Halsema, who said she felt backed into a corner at the last minute.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Schonewille says the Music On cancellation has also put his own team on edge. \u201cYou go back through everything to check whether you\u2019ve done it all right and whether there are any loose ends. We\u2019ve been critically reviewing our entire permit process and all the deadlines, for example.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Programmer Bart Elshof of WestWeelde, the venue formerly known as Westerunie, spent last week double-checking all his permits too. \u201cWe need to have everything in order for Pride by Monday, so I went back and looked carefully.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Elshof has been handling permit applications for WestWeelde for years and thinks the City could show a little more trust. \u201cWe can\u2019t do things on an enormous scale here, so our permits are often the same as before. And yet every relevant department and agency has to review them all over again each time. It creates unnecessary workload for organizers and for a lot of departments within the City. There should be a points-based system so organizers with a good track record don\u2019t have to redo everything from scratch every single time.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Industry body Evenementen Vereniging Amsterdam (EVA) says in a statement that safety always comes first \u2013 and that safety is best served by clear, consistent and predictable rules and assessments. \u201cOrganizers have long experienced how difficult the safety advisory process for structures at events can be, and how it varies from environmental authority to environmental authority, from municipality to municipality, from district to district, from official to official.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
According to Schonewille, how quickly you hear back after a permit application or amendment varies from district to district \u2013 and the differences between municipalities are even wider. \u201cI also organize other festivals around the country, and it\u2019s different everywhere.\u201d.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
The tent structure Loveland used at Music On had stood at a festival in The Hague just over two weeks earlier, where the municipality had approved it. More than two weeks later Loveland took additional measures for the same tent \u2013 adding extra ballast to weigh it down \u2013 yet the Omgevingsdienst Noordzeekanaalgebied maintained its negative assessment.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\u201cThe inspection, where the relevant authorities come to your site, happens only the day before,\u201d Elshof says. \u201cThat makes sense, because you\u2019re not done building until then. But if something is rejected at that point, you have very little time to adjust or fix it.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
That, ZeeZout founder Schonewille says, shows the system needs to be overhauled. \u201cThere should be a central registry of certified tents \u2013 tents whose structural calculations have been verified. Then you don\u2019t have to push the same tent through the bureaucratic grinder every single time.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
The EVA says the current system is inefficient and breeds uncertainty. \u201cOrganizers invest months in safety plans, structural calculations and permit processes. When assessments shift along the way, or turn out to depend on differences in working methods, you end up with a situation that nobody wants \u2013 including the authorities themselves. Safety cannot become an exercise that depends on your postcode.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Elshof offered the broadcasting of the European Championship as an example. Two years ago WestWeelde was the only venue in the city with a big screen, because Elshof was the only organizer who had applied for a permit in time.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\u201cFor this World Cup I already emailed the City after the draw in December to ask whether we\u2019d be allowed to screen the matches at night,\u201d he says. \u201cThey were supposed to set out the rules in February, but that didn\u2019t happen until a few weeks ago. When they make decisions that late, it becomes more and more expensive for us to get everything organized in time. This World Cup has been on the calendar for years, and the late kick-off times were known well in advance.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
In the end, the permit application had to be resubmitted. Elshof filed it ten weeks before the World Cup begins \u2013 the standard lead time for events with up to 2,000 visitors \u2013 but the City\u2019s permit rules were published only after he had already submitted it. \u201cSo that was needlessly doing everything twice.\u201d.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Schonewille says he recognizes the pattern, and that the current rules breed arbitrariness. \u201cWhereas there should be no ambiguity at all, and everyone should know in good time where they stand. What happened at Music On is terrible. It affects everyone \u2013 the whole industry. We all need to look at the system together so this doesn\u2019t happen again. We have to prevent these kinds of disasters.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n