Big downer Harlingen Fishing Days: popular evening program is canceled

Music, a beer or two (or more), meeting acquaintances, for many Harlingen residents the annual Visserijdagen at the end of August are mainly about fun in the evenings. The catering entrepreneurs arrange the music performances on five stages, while the ER takes care of security, first aid, traffic controllers and waste processing.

But that foundation has now seen prices rise to such an extent that it is pulling the plug on that evening program after proper consultation with the catering entrepreneurs. “Our costs have quadrupled since 2019,” said chairman Bram Visser. “We can no longer take responsibility for this and the catering industry will not do this either.”

A great loss

The decision of the ER has no consequences for the daily program of the Fisheries Days and the fireworks. That will continue, says chairman Jules Dutrieux of the Harlingen Visserijdagen Foundation, which is responsible for the day program. He was informed about the decision of the fellow foundation on Wednesday evening. “I really regret it, it will be a great loss,” said Dutrieux, who also shows understanding. “Security costs have completely gone off the rails. In 2023, this was 86 percent higher for our day program than in 2022.”

He himself has finalized the budget for the day’s programme. “We take an increase into account, but we base this on last summer’s budget. If costs do increase, we will cut programming, but that is not the case now.”

Until a few years ago, Bram Visser’s Harlingen Events Foundation always worked with a budget of around 15,000 euros. Since last year, the municipality has outsourced the permit application for both the day and evening programs to an external agency. “The costs then came to 40,000 euros.” That amount was put on the table in a creative way.

But now the matter is different. “Based on the rules determined by the municipality and safety region, the external agency believes that there should be more security and more first aiders on the streets. The costs for us then amount to almost 65,000 euros. We don’t have that and so we informed the municipality last week that we would pull the plug.” Secretary Gerben Dijkstra of the foundation confirms this and says that the foundation has returned the assignment for the evening program to the municipality.

The municipality reacts in surprise

The municipality of Harlingen reacted with surprise to this through municipal spokesperson Joël Heiner. “In our conversation last week, concerns were expressed about the costs, but the message that this was the end of the matter did not reach us,” Heiner said. “The foundations must make it clear what they want now.” He also indicates that the municipality understands the costs incurred as a result of the increasing regulatory pressure. “Many events are related to this.” This also resulted in events in Harlingen last summer deleted .

Visser thinks it is a shame that the municipality seems to be throwing the ball back to Visser’s foundation and Dutrieux’s foundation. In any case, he does not want to beg for money from the municipality with his firm message. “It’s not meant that way. We believe that what is stated in the permit application is exaggerated. The event is overly secured. So something has to be done about that.”

Visitor figures too flourishing

According to Visser, this excessive security is partly because the agency takes into account visitor figures that are too flourishing. “It’s not hundreds of thousands anymore, like it used to be. Counts last summer show that on the busiest day, Saturday, there were at most 60,000 people throughout the day.” This also leads to another question for Visser. “Are we still doing what people want? We’ve been doing it this way for 25 years, shouldn’t we do something different?”

He calls on the municipality to come to terms with the events policy with associated subsidies that has been promised for years. “Then we know where we stand. Extra money is nice, but what about next year?”

The municipality’s event vision was made available for inspection on Tuesday. Harlingen says it wants to offer space for traditional activities, such as the Fisheries Days, and to embrace new events. The municipality also says that it is aware of the increased regulatory burden. There will be a subsidy scheme, but it is not stated how the money will be distributed.