Thousands of visitors and thousands of liters of water. On the summer edition of the Hello Festival in Emmen, 20,000 visitors arrived yesterday. Until the late hours, partying could be done under the supervision of Slotact Goldband.
“Everyone worked very hard,” organizer Wim Beekman looks back on the 22nd edition of the festival. Due to the tropical temperatures, the organization had drawn up a heat plan with measures to cope with the heat. “We had made extra shade points and arranged extra water taps. There were also swimming pools to bathe and people were allowed to take their own water bottles on the festival site.”
Although such a summer edition provides the necessary challenges, Beekman looks back with satisfaction. “The audience was very quiet and well prepared and we kept an eye on all places with the employees and security guards, especially in the afternoon and looked at whether there were outliers in terms of temperature.”
The supply of water caused some problems on some points, Beekman explains. “We had a total of sixty water points, but at six water points the taps with barrels of a thousand liters had to be filled. It took a while before they were filled, so that there was some and a half hours in the water supply for an hour and a half. We then had an extra forklift truck that could drive with several vessels at the same time, making it faster.” Then we had it. “
Visitors were sent to other water points where there was enough water, Beekman explains via screens and at the points where there was temporarily less water available. “We worked very hard for an hour and a half. In general, there were some more overheated people at the first aid because of the warmth, but we didn’t have major problems.”
All in all, Beekman looks back on a successful festival. “We look back very closely. The circumstances got better at the end of the afternoon. We had a beautiful summer evening, you don’t have that often either.”