Pinkpop is back on Friday after a two-year break due to the corona pandemic. For three days, thousands of people in Landgraaf watch bands such as Metallica, Chef’Special and Maneskin.
“We are excited”, festival manager Niek Murray tells the AP† “Now it’s really going to happen what we’ve been working for all year.”
The two Pinkpop-less years have “chopped in”, says the festival manager. “For the crew, suppliers and everyone it was a bit of a search again: how did we do that again?” But after two days of building it up, that had already disappeared, says Murray.
The 51st edition of Pinkpop will be the first with Murray as festival manager. He took over from founder and ‘Mr. Pinkpop’ Jan Smeets, who stopped as festival director in 2020 due to his health.
The Pinkpop organization also had to deal with all kinds of shortages this year, which affect the entire sector. “You see it everywhere: supplier problems, personnel problems. We also suffer from this,” says Murray. Organizing this edition was therefore more “challenging” than usual, but according to the festival manager everything is “arranged on paper”.
This week there was another challenge for the festival organization. It promises to be particularly warm in the south of the country on Friday and Saturday. The temperature in Landgraaf can reach 32 degrees.
Due to the expected heat, there are extra water points on the festival site, visitors are informed about the heat and the first aid team is instructed to pay extra attention to visitors. At points where crowds are expected, the possibility to hand out water is provided.