Last year, the municipality of Emmen already expressed its hopes for its own liberation festival: “Emmen is the largest municipality in Drenthe. A free, accessible liberation festival suits our multicultural municipality with more than 100,000 inhabitants,” the municipality said in October.
The municipality knocked on the door of Johan Velzing, owner of discotheques Party Palace in New Amsterdam and Rembrandt in Coevorden. He also organizes the Twins Festival and the Geese Festival in those places.
Together with Jeffrey Mol and Ruben Neehoff, of catering establishments Tranquilo, Limbo and Fuif in Emmen, he is now taking the initiative for Liberation Day Emmen. Mol and Neehoff previously organized the C’est La Vie festival on the Raadhuisplein.
The trio deliberately does not call the new event Liberation Festival, because it is its own party, with a different program than the national events in the context of Liberation Day.