'Cherish this!': test festival in Biddinghuizen is purging fever dream for small crowd

Hundreds of people hosted, boozed and flirted in the Flevopolder this weekend. As of old, in fact. Were we witnessing a tentative advance for what awaits us later this year, or was the Back to Live experiment an ultra-short flare-up of a life that is far from within reach? Either way, some 3,000 people experienced a few purifying hours in Biddinghuizen. "Cherish this!"

The soap dispensers in the backstage area look a bit forlorn and the crowd on the other side of the festival grounds have their mouth caps deep in their pockets by now. Still, the outside world briefly intrudes during a one-two punch between rapper Gotu Jim and his audience at the Back to Live festival in Biddinghuizen.

Gotu shouts - over a heavy trap beat - "Astraaa!". The crowd plays it back, of course: "Zeeenecaaa!". Gotu: "Astraaa!" And so on.

Sympathetic and funny moment of course here on day two of the party experiment in the Flevopolder. Normally, tens of thousands of people thunder across this venue a few times a year. It is the place where fireworks, lasers and amusement park decors power hardstyle beats at Defqon.1. The place also where thousands of people purposefully inflict sleep deprivation on themselves during festival classic Lowlands. Today the capacity is modest, but the scale of this mini-festival feels, deep into lockdown two, incredibly massive. For two days, some 3,000 frenzied people - 1,500 per day - may flout corona rules here.

Yes, that is euphoric, that is liberating, that is purging and cries out for joyous wantonness. The end of the Gotu Jim show approaches as on the floor the crowd disperses and forms a circle. Then all those people eagerly pounce on each other again, grabbing each other, clumping together. On stage, meanwhile, Gotu raps that he's "popping pills" with Mathijs de Ligt. It is these kinds of familiar, essentially dead-normal, festival moments that move today. "Cherish this!" the rapper shouts from the stage.

Free

How can we organise events in corona time and how can we do so as safely as possible? Those questions are the stakes of the test events organised by the events sector recently under the name Fieldlab. After a business conference, pop festival and sports competition, among others, this mini-festival is the most exciting trial so far. The set-up is basically simple: after showing a negative PCR test result - not older than 48 hours - you are allowed to enter the grounds. Behind the gates, you are free to go wherever you want.

Future events are likely to involve mass testing, but that is not what Fieldlab research is about, says programme manager Pieter Lubberts. "Last year, everyone said, 'All events are unsafe.' We thought you should first see what risks are actually attached to each type of event, because that one-half-meter measure is killing the sector. That's how the idea for Fieldlab was born in June. We are looking for ways to reduce contamination risks. So where do the risks lie? Those lie in contact moments. This is also a behavioural study."

For example, visitors today are wearing a tracker which monitors all contact moments. This is to find out how often and for how long people make contact with each other. It is also monitoring today where any congestion occurs and everyone has been asked in advance to wear a mouth mask.

There is no enforcement on this and so I soon see only a few wearing face coverings: sometimes the fabric still hangs cowardly over the chin. "It's a kind of peer pressure," says Joel, who is sitting at a picnic table near the food court with two others and has long since tucked her cap away. In other words, the more people take off that cap, the more will follow. And yes, everyone has a negative test in their pocket and feels safe and free. I myself am still hesitant when I lean forward to understand someone, but with Joel that diffidence has already disappeared: "It is euphoric to be so close to others. To talk to strange people again!"

For the record 'wrong' behaviour does not exist today. Indeed, according to Lubberts, it is actually important for people not to exhibit desirable behaviour, but to be themselves above all else.

Opinions

From that series of Fieldlab events, a mountain of data follows from which a series of recommendations will soon roll out. For instance, how can a football stadium influence the flow of people so that not everyone wriggles in at the same time? What capacity is possible for the risk phase the country is in (currently: 'very serious') and how do you use crowd control to prevent thousands of people having to be quarantined in case of an unexpected contamination in the ZiggoDome? How many people can you safely put on a festival site in a certain risk phase, and does it make sense to mandate a face mask?

Fieldlab eventually shares those recommendations with the Outbreak Management Team - infection prevention professor and OMT member Andreas Voss is involved in the study - which in turn advises the government. From that, guidelines for the industry will soon - hopefully - follow. "We are looking at opportunities to get as much done as possible within a certain national risk phase," says Lubberts. "We hope to have an OMT opinion within three weeks following our first events." Analyses of this festival weekend will follow later. Opinions for the theatres are likely to be on the table earlier.

Torre Florim of De Staat (Photo: Studio Gambar)

Fever dream

All nice, nice and important of course, but for the mob in Biddinghuizen it is mainly the here and now that counts. This is how singer Froukje - who broke through in corona time with songs about melancholy and the purging the dance floor - into the eyes of hundreds of people for the first time. "I've never been in front of such an audience before," she says. "Fucking fat, pfff". Further on, people dance on concrete blocks. Others are hosing, swaying, flirting and falling into each other's arms. Eyes are soon watery with alcohol.

Long branches, picked in the field, swish above the crowd. One is intricate with the strands from a confetti cannon and sticks out above the heads like a palmpaa branch. A girl climbs onto someone's shoulders and takes a selfie. At rock band De Staat, the crowd churns like it's 2019. A dude in blue-green tracksuit dances, with his glasses on the tip of his nose, while deftly holding two beers in his hand.

For all those people going in with their legs stretched out today, it must be a purifying fever dream, those few hours back in the 'previous normal'. From 7pm the crowd disperses, often in pairs strolling towards the car park at dusk. Back into that little bubble, towards the sometimes maddeningly uncluttered life of a pandemic.

As I sit in the car, a boy knocks on the window. I turn it open. He sticks out a fist and we punch each other. "Was fun man," he says. In the distance, people are bellowing.