'If you can put only a quarter, or even less, in a hall that normally holds 600 people, then the tickets do become very expensive, because your costs don't change. Then my popular heart starts beating again: should we really want something so elitist?' Bernard van Gellekom is an important figure in the Amersfoort pop scene. In his home cum business premises on the edge of Amersfoort's Soesterkwartier district, he has created space for bands and DJs to work in complete freedom. The Corona crisis suddenly changed that on 12 March 2020.
For Van Gellekom, this was not the first blow. When the previous 'banking' crisis broke out, his company almost went bankrupt. Unable to get by, he started something new in addition to his marketing work, and that has become a local platform as well as a part in the premises for all those bands, which has now become such a success. Until March 12, at least.
Mafia
Even now, he is trying to think ahead. What if the one-half-century society stays here for a long time? 'I then envisage a luxury setting from those mafia films of the 1930s. Luxury tables with expensive drinks. A concert might then have to take place in three shifts, so that with three plays in one evening, you still have enough audience. Streaming can too, but for musicians, and actors too of course: if you play in front of an empty hall, it's not really nice. Jumping into the auditorium just to let loose with your audience, that has really become an impossibility.
It really hurts me. The basic institutions might still be able to arrange something, but a club like Pitchers, with four-metre widths, it can close.' The whole live music scene is disrupted, but Van Gellekom has a plan. He talks about it in our podcast, a collaboration between De Stadsbron and Culture Press.
'Now many theatres are empty during the day. I have a problem with that. I've dropped a plan at City Hall. I would very much like to see clubs like Per Expression, FCG or us, FCA, working as a kind of production houses. Like sports, the halls, rooms and other facilities should be under a management group. Schouwburg De Flint too will then become more of a production company, which can use a hall in the Flint, but also a hall at Fluor. We also have Holland Opera: it is 80 per cent empty, even though it is a beautiful space. Then production house FLUOR should just be able to use that space. So you can hand over the overhead, the management, the administration all to a facilities company. A bit like what happens in sports, where the SRO takes care of that.'
The plan is now buzzing around Amersfoort. We will keep you posted on the reactions, and the (im)possibilities others see, in the coming period.
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