Bevrijdingspop Haarlem 2019
May 2019 | Haarlem | Stichting Bevrijdingspop
May 2019 | Haarlem | Stichting Bevrijdingspop
Bevrijdingspop Haarlem is the oldest Liberation Festival that celebrates the Dutch liberation at the end of WWII. Since 1980, freedom has been observed in Haarlem on the 5th of May, and over time this event has grown into a festival with 115.000 visitors enjoying bands, DJs, and other cultural performances. In 2008 the Bevrijdingspop Memorial Concert was added to the event on the 4th of May. The festival spreads out over four stages in three different city parks in the center of Haarlem. Some important traffic routes in the city even pass through the event location. This results in a complex logistical operation.
The festival has been organized under the flag of Backbone since 2013. So, this year’s edition was the first of our 3-year prolongation in cooperation with Stichting Bevrijdingspop. Backbone was also responsible for the technical production, technical design, risk & crowd support, and overlay management of this production manage. We handled the permit application and took care of the safety plan, emergency plan, and production manual, among others. We were responsible for the technical production of all stages and the management of all temporary infrastructures. Backbone managed the entire logistical operation and was location responsible during load-in, shows, and load-out.
With Bart van Rooy of BigVis, we’ve created a new main stage for this edition. A special feature of this stage was the large screen where all names of the victims of WWII were displayed from the start of the memorial concert on the 4th of May until midnight on the 5th of May. An impressive detail that even reached the Dutch media.
Event Photography credits: Bevrijdingspop Haarlem 2019
