China Lights skips a year at the Rensenpark This year, the light festival will be held at an as yet unknown location within the municipality of Emmen. This is announced by Henk Hiddingh, who signs for the organization together with Jannet Westebring.
According to Hiddingh, the new location will be announced after the summer holidays. “The talks are at an advanced stage, but it’s not quite finished yet. So I’ll keep the new location to myself for a while.” It may also be the last time that China Lights will be held in the municipality of Emmen.
“For 2024 we are orienting ourselves on a place outside Emmen, in another municipality,” he says. According to the organizer, there is interest from other places. “Municipalities that want to help us with a good space and want to cooperate when it comes to permits, a fence and more.”
This choice is striking, since the organization had indicated in March that it wanted to go for a new edition on the former zoo grounds. But that’s what the organization comes back to.
What plays a role in the background is the criticism that the event had to endure during the last edition. Local residents thought that the three-month event took a very long time. In addition, noise nuisance was also experienced.
At the end of last year, a couple who live right next to the park objected to the event permit and the temporary exemption from the zoning plan. This appears to have major consequences for preparing the paperwork for a next edition of China Lights.
The couple feared from experience with previous editions that the noise nuisance would be greater than permitted under the Nuisance Act. The music, in particular, annoyed the couple. Research conducted in 2021 shows that the noise exceeded the permitted values several times. Those results were not included at the time.
The couple also pointed out that alcohol was being served around the tents at the Rensentheater. According to them, this is not allowed on the basis of the permit. They also think that China Lights lasts three months too much of a good thing.
The protest is successful, because the mayor recently decided on the basis of this objection procedure to adjust the permit on a number of points. He thinks a noise exemption for an event like China Lights for about two weeks is acceptable. But longer, in this case three months, means too great an infringement on the enjoyment of living, according to the mayor.
The alcohol exemption is also revoked: it should have been issued for twelve days at the latest. As a result, the light festival ‘can no longer be held in this form’. Unless, for example, only acoustic music is played or visitors wear headphones. But the organization has now set its sights on a different location.
“In any case, that will be a place that the municipality itself will not have much to do with (the municipality of Emmen owns the Rensenpark, ed.). We don’t think: how can we adapt to the municipality, but we just want to come up with something fun for a large audience. Whether that is in Emmen or not does not interest us much.”
Hiddingh would have preferred a more cooperative attitude from the municipality. “We would prefer to include indoor locations in China Lights. There are plenty of empty spaces in the park, such as the city farm and the old Americasa. We would have liked to make temporary use of that. We also had to deal with bad weather during the last edition, so that would have been a godsend. It would also make a difference in terms of noise. But if the municipality hesitates about that for so long, then we can’t do anything about it.”
According to Hiddingh, one edition requires at least a year of preparation and it is too soon to organize anything in the Rensenpark now. “If it is not possible or successful, then we will not beat a dead horse,” said Hiddingh.