The Haarlem lazybones market was built this afternoon. Market master Ron van de Vall runs his regular round when the merchants display their wares. The market master of the city has been able to organize this Haarlem tradition for nineteen years. This year is his last, because Ron is retiring.
Luilakmarkt – NH News
From traffic plan to emergency plan and from agreements with local residents to arranging market traders, Ron van de Vall (65) has been busy preparing the flower and pot market.
Silk thread
After two years of absence, arranging sufficient market traders was a major task. For a while it even seemed that the market wouldn’t go on at all due to too few registrations.
“Normally we are already full with registrations at the beginning of the year. Now we only had a few registrations two months ago. I then called everyone. It’s great that it can go ahead.”
Luilak and the flower market are a tradition woven through history. The idea of waking people early during Luilak is only celebrated in the west of the Netherlands in an area between Texel and Delft. With Luilak, the late sleepers are awakened early on Saturday morning. In the 16th and 17th centuries ‘lazy’ started already on the Friday before Pentecost.
Yet Luilak is not a Christian holiday, even though it coincides with Pentecost. In Haarlem, among others, Luilak is preceded by a lazy (flower) market that always takes place from Friday to Saturday morning. This Haarlem market has been officially there since 1890, making it the oldest known lazybones market.
Ron’s two successors watched this afternoon how the market master arranges things.
“We can learn a lot from him,” says Amy van der Aar (24). “He has so much knowledge of how to build such a market. We are going to miss that.”
Sleeping in a construction site
They know something that the future market master will do differently. “Ron has had a construction site built for himself so that he can get some sleep in the late hours. We don’t like that. We prefer to go to a B&B or dive into a hotel. We really have to arrange that,” laughs Van of the Aar.
The lullaby market is now in full swing and lasts until 2 a.m.
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