North Sea Jazz moves to Rotterdam

17 March 2004

AMSTERDAM — The North Sea Jazz Festival, the nation’s largest jazz music event, will move from The Hague to Rotterdam from 2006, it was announced on Wednesday.

Rotterdam Economic Alderman Wim van Sluis said from 2006, the jazz festival will be exclusively held at Ahoy, the harbour city’s premier entertainment venue and concert hall.

The festival has been held for almost 30 years in The Hague, but due to the fact the concert venue Statenhal will be used as a headquarters for the European police agency Europol from 2005, festival organisers were forced to seek another location.

Festival director Theo van den Hoek said the organisers would prefer to have remained in The Hague, but could not see any other option but to relocate, news agency ANP reported.

He said the move to Rotterdam was 99 percent certain and organisers had until the end of this month to come up with an alternative plan. If they fail to do so, the festival will be moved to the Ahoy.

The Mayor of the Hague, Wim Deetman, is trying to relocate the festival to the Nederlands Congress Centrum, but it is too small to accommodate the festival’s daily visitors. Van den Hoek said a miracle needed to occur for The Hague to keep the festival.

The North Sea Jazz Festival attracts 70,000 fans each year and the director of the Ahoy, Jos van der Vegt, does not expect this number to decline. The festival is a concept and has many fans, the director said.

Subject: Dutch news