With thirty seated visitors who had to leave the building at five o’clock, Rotown in Rotterdam was already unable to do anything, so the pop stage closed again in November. Director Minke Weeda (47) is now working on an online Christmas special about all the bands that played at the Left of the Dial festival and reports on the bumpy path that hopefully leads back to ‘normal’ in columns on Muziscene.nl.
How are you?
“Well, what a hassle again… But actually, little else will change for us. We wouldn’t do anything for the time being, we now have to wait and see when we can continue. The lockdown just feels a little more desperate. Planning something is difficult if there is no clarity about when the measures will relax. But we bravely persist under the motto ‘this too shall pass’.
“As long as I’m busy, I’m fine. We’ve all learned how to film and edit and are now making a Christmas special around all the bands that played at our Left of the Dial festival. That way we can give those artists a stage again.”
What’s going well, what’s not?
“It is now hard to imagine that two months ago we organized a great festival with 2,500 visitors a day. Of the hundred bands that played there, seventy came from abroad. I have never seen so many happy people together. There are, of course, dozens of postponed or canceled concerts.
“That, combined with the knowledge that countless other festivals could not go on because they were just out of those wonderfully normal weeks, makes it a bittersweet memory.”
What is your biggest concern right now?
“Our technicians, production people and artists all work independently and for them the support is minimal. That really should be arranged better. In any case, I think that the value of the cultural sector is underestimated. When concert attendance was no longer possible, you could still go to the casino. That’s just not right, is it?”
How can 2022 get better?
“I used to have a very sweet neighbor who sent me a card a few years ago with the quote: ‘Circumstances? What are circumstances? I create the circumstances’. It hangs above my desk and on good days I think: yes, whatever happens, I’ll make sure that our world stays fun. But after the umpteenth press conference without any perspective, I sometimes lose heart. You don’t organize concerts in a day, it would help enormously if they looked a little longer than three weeks ahead. I say that with all understanding of the impossibility of the situation, but if our agenda has to be empty again until March, I’d rather hear it right now. Then I will make other circumstances.”
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