Lowlands will not let grass grow over it. The same day that the cabinet announces Because multi-day festivals are canceled for the time being, the organization has started clearing the fields in Biddinghuizen where the festival would take place from 20 to 22 August.
“I am deeply disappointed,” says director Eric van Eerdenburg. “And I feel that most deeply for the youth who are still limited in their freedom of movement after a year and a half.”
Despite the disappointment, Van Eerdenburg is also relieved. Because the cabinet’s decision comes after a few “nervous” weeks.
On the site, set designers pull the pegs out of the ground again, the barrier tape is rolled up and the Bravo tent can be flat again:
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‘We’ll pack up and go home’
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For a long time it seemed to be going well this summer. “Until that June 26,” says Van Eerdenburg. That was the Saturday on which most of the corona rules were released. With vaccination or test certificates, partygoers and catering visitors did not have to keep 1.5 meters away.
In the weeks that followed, the number of daily reported infections increased to more than 10,000 per day, also due to the advance of the more contagious delta variant.
The cabinet was shocked by the figures and tightened the rules again. On July 9, the cabinet announced that festivals would only be allowed until mid-August if they lasted only one day and had seats for visitors.
A decision would not be made about the period after that until August 13, just before the start of Lowlands. “That is a period that is completely unworkable for us,” says Van Eerdenburg. “Then you are asking too much of artists, suppliers, caterers. Artists and agents called continuously after 9 July. That was nerve-wracking for us.” He is therefore relieved that the cabinet is making the final choice now, and not until mid-August.
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With 70,000 tests, it would be a kind of North Korean penal camp.
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In particular, retesting visitors every day would become unfeasible for festivals, said outgoing Prime Minister Mark Rutte. Van Eerdenburg agrees. “Before the infections got out of hand, only people who have not been double vaccinated should be tested. That would be about 10,000, 15,000 people. That could have been done.”
“Now it would be 70,000 people every day, also with staff. It will then become a kind of North Korean penal camp. Then it is very far from what we want to be as Lowlands.”
‘Error on error’
Does he still blame the government that the contamination figures are again at such a high level that festivals are not safe to organize? “It was a huge confluence of mistakes and circumstances. Delta, dancing after Janssen, doormen who let you into the club for a tenner without a test certificate. That 40 hours of testing. Error upon error.”
But his “anger” is mainly aimed at “people in their forties, fifties, sixties who have not been vaccinated or not yet fully vaccinated. People who say ‘we don’t vaccinate’ prevent people from meeting each other in the cultural sector, at festivals and in club.”
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