Major King’s Day festival is the target of criticism: ‘You should be ashamed!’ | Domestic

‘Loveland ticket wanted!’ Or: ‘Who can help me hunt on Ticketswap?’ In a last desperate attempt, hundreds of people searched – often in vain – for a ticket for the sold-out Loveland in Amsterdam on Saturday. As a dance and techno lover, you don’t celebrate our king’s birthday in a pub in the city, but in the Meerpark, under a radiant sun and cool beats from Reinier Zonneveld and Kölsch, among others. DJs with a million monthly listeners on Spotify.

The photos that Loveland publishes on social media show smiling revelers dressed in orange, who seem to be having a great time. But although a few indicate that they enjoyed the festival, the majority of the comments under the message are scathing. Visitors are mainly very angry. The festival site was overcrowded, disorganized and downright chaotic, according to a tour.

Loveland immediately had a false start. Due to the entrance ‘far too small’, according to visitors, people had to wait more than an hour and a half to get to the site. Once inside, it would be difficult to get food and drinks, due to too few food trucks and much too slow service. ‘Very grumpy and no manager in sight. No job satisfaction at all’, is how Leonie Cruson describes the people behind the bars.

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As the day progressed, the tents became increasingly crowded, according to images circulating on social media. Afterwards, a ‘dangerous situation’ even arose at the lockers, visitors sketch. “I was almost crushed by a crowd where people couldn’t move or breathe. It was really shocking,” Amsterdam actress Marleen Mathews told this site. ‘People have become oppressed and unwell. Too bizarre for words,’ says Elma de Kloe about the same outcome. “Thousands of people wanted to leave and ended up in a funnel of misery,” adds Brenda Speelman (51). She has been a ‘loyal visitor since day one’, she says. “But I’ve never experienced this before. Growing nicely, but the facilities… Jesus!”

In the meantime, Loveland, a festival with a good reputation and a decent track record, is partly taking its responsibility. The enormous crowds at the entrance were due to ‘unannounced security measures imposed by the municipality’, she reports in a response on Instagram. “While we have made every effort to resolve this issue as quickly as possible, we deeply regret the situation and sincerely apologize.” The municipality of Amsterdam denies that it surprised Loveland on the spot. “Although there are stricter rules for events and extra supervision, but the rules for visitation are no different than last year. All these measures are included in the permit, so the organizer knew what to prepare for. However, the inspection revealed that this was not properly implemented by the organizer. They were addressed about this and it has been adjusted.”

Other festivals in the city, such as Oranjebloesem in the Olympic Stadium, did not experience long queues. Visitor Regina Happé cannot find the words for it. “It was a drama. Everything was bad,” she tells this site. Frank Wijnveld, expert in crowd management, is familiar with the stories about Loveland. “One of my daughters came home complaining. Normally things go well here,” says Wijnveld, who does not dare to draw any firm conclusions. “It sounds like too little attention to and analysis of crowd management, audience flows, routes and use, densities per phase and so on.”

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The organization behind Loveland acknowledges in its statement that it took too long at the entrance, and will see this week whether there is a way to ‘make up for’ the problems. For many people, Loveland, which is coming up with another festival this summer, seems to be over for good. “Never again Loveland for me, you should be ashamed of yourselves!”, says Ruurd Sanders. The visitor speaks on Instagram of ‘the worst festival in years’, and receives support from others. ‘Because of your own profiteering, you simply admitted many more people than anticipated.’

When asked, visitor Jordi Huirne understands the criticism, but he himself had ‘a fantastic day’. “The fact that everyone only comes at 3 p.m. or 4 p.m., while the party ends at 8 p.m., is also not convenient. It was indeed extremely busy at the bar and in the tents, except for the main tent, but only from the afternoon.”

Many visitors suspect that Loveland, which was looking for a ‘crowd safety manager’ 7 months ago, has sold far too many tickets. ‘Unprecedentedly long lines at the toilets, bars very busy, grounds and tents (except for the main) everywhere full. At the end it took another hour to reach the locker. “It mainly seemed that there were just too many people for what the location could handle,” describes Laurens Middendorp, whose response has been ‘liked’ more than 140 times. Middendorp still keeps it neat, because elsewhere there are also louder shouts and swearing. There are also calls to demand a massive refund of the money for the tickets (about 50 euros) and to bombard the festival with emails.

Loveland Events, an organization with ‘a track record of over twenty years’, states that there were 19,000 visitors and that the park has a capacity for 20,000 visitors. A more detailed statement about the complaints will follow in the afternoon. The organization was contacted several times by telephone, email and Facebook on Monday morning, but there was no response. After reporting from this site, the organization still contacted us.

The municipality of Amsterdam emphasizes that it is up to the organizer to organize an event in such a way that waiting times for visitors are as short as possible. “But it must be safe, including by checking visitors for possession of weapons or drugs. It is the municipality’s job to monitor this, and organizers know they can expect that supervision.”

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