'Unmute us': Marchers demand return of Dutch music festivals

AMSTERDAM – Dutch euphony fans person been banned for months from going to large-scale festivals owed to coronavirus restrictions. On Saturday, the festivals came to them.

Hundreds of performers and festival organizers held marches done six Dutch cities connected Saturday to protestation what they reason are unfair restrictions that person forced the cancellation of summertime euphony festivals and different events.

Thousands of radical attended 1 of the “Unmute Us” marches successful Amsterdam, walking and dancing down a convoy of trucks carrying DJs and dependable systems pumping retired music.

Leonie der Verkleij, a freelancer who works successful hospitality services astatine events, was among those marching successful Amsterdam.

“The festival manufacture feels similar an unwanted child,” she said. “It feels similar each sectors are important but ours.”

Amsterdam municipality appealed mid-afternoon for nary much radical to articulation the march arsenic it was excessively crowded.

The Dutch authorities has banned large-scale events specified arsenic festivals until astatine slightest Sept. 19 amid fears implicit the dispersed of the highly infectious delta variant. One-day events with a maximum of 750 visitors are allowed for radical with a COVID-19 app showing they person been vaccinated, person precocious tested antagonistic oregon person recovered from a lawsuit successful the past six months.

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Organizers of Saturday's protestation privation the prohibition lifted connected Sept. 1. They constituent to overseas events and the instrumentality of crowds to shot stadiums — with impervious of vaccination, betterment from COVID-19 oregon a antagonistic trial — arsenic grounds that radical tin congregate successful ample numbers without corruption numbers surging.

Jasper Goossen of Apenkooi Events, which organizes creation festivals, said hundreds of festivals person been canceled owed to the pandemic, crippling an manufacture that employs 100,000 people.

“There are truthful galore passionate radical moving successful this manufacture and they are each having a pugnacious time. We privation to determination forward, not basal still,” helium said.

Dutch organizers constituent to festivals successful different countries that person not turned into superspreader events, specified arsenic the summer's Lollapalooza euphony festival successful Chicago. Authorities successful Chicago said they had linked 203 COVID-19 cases to the four-day lawsuit that drew 385,000 people.

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Marchers carried home-made banners reading: “Music = Medicine” and “Don't Cancel Culture.”

Festivals are a accepted diagnostic of the European summer, but galore person been canceled oregon postponed this year. In England, galore of the biggest events, specified arsenic Glastonbury successful southwest England and BST Hyde Park successful London, were cancelled for the 2nd twelvemonth moving due to the fact that of the pandemic.

But the lifting of each remaining restrictions connected societal interaction successful England connected July 19 has astatine slightest allowed immoderate to instrumentality place. However, organizers of the Notting Hill Carnival successful westbound London, which is billed arsenic Europe’s biggest thoroughfare fair, decided earlier those restrictions were lifted to cancel the two-day lawsuit successful precocious August due to the fact that of the “ongoing uncertainty and risk” posed by COVID-19.

In France, festivals are allowed for radical with a microorganism walk showing they are afloat vaccinated, precocious tested antagonistic oregon precocious recovered from the virus. Yet galore organizers person reduced the maximum fig of radical per day. The country's biggest festival, the Vieilles Charrues, acceptable a bounds of 5,000 spectators each day.

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The 7-day rolling mean of regular caller cases successful Netherlands eased somewhat implicit the past 2 weeks, going from 16.45 caller cases per 100,000 radical connected Aug. 6 to 15.05 caller cases per 100,000 radical connected Aug. 20. Nearly 18,000 radical person died successful the Netherlands of COVID-19.

Melvin van Pelt, a DJ and shaper who works nether the sanction Tahko, said he's worked successful authorities investigating and vaccination centers to assistance wage his rent and agrees with galore coronavirus measures, but he's had capable of the festival ban.

“I americium sick of it. I'm angry. I nary longer consciousness represented by my ain government,” helium said.

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Associated Press writers Pan Pylas successful London and Sylvie Corbet successful Paris contributed.

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