The Back To Live Festival was one of the test events for the Netherlands to see how COVID-19, the pandemic, will impact future events and the entertainment industry. These are practical experiments where the following things will be researched; behaviour, tracking, tracing, rapid testing, visitor dynamics, air quality, personal safety and cleaning & desinfection of materials and surfaces and finally, vulnerable population groups. The experiments were organized by Fieldlab Evenementen, MOJO and ID&T. The customer journey for those events is here.

It all went very fast with announcements that the government allowed this, and over 180,000 people were interested in scoring tickets for four different events; a dance event one & concert, both indoors at Ziggo Dome during a weekend, and a dance festival & pop festival outdoors at the Event place from Walibi Holland in Biddinghuizen on the 21st of March, 2021. I got tickets for the last (the best) event – all of course in the name of science. Only €25,-, a small price for science. After already a year of not going to concerts or events, this is what made me come alive and helped me make it through the pandemic.

The event was open air, required a corona test in advance (not earlier than 48 hours in advance) and after, a visitor can’t be part of a high-risk group and has to do some surveys and more things.

The Back To Live Pop Festival

It all started with the getting tickets which was quite a hassle, and thank god I scored one. But then the event got moved to the 21th due the weather which would have impacted the results and a few tickets came back and went on sale again. So I scored another one, so my bestie could join! Anyway, you had to book a corona test and I got one together with my other friend. It was a hassle but glad we did it, the sun was shining and we were both negative.

Then the days in advance you had to download the Close app, which was like an infamous tablet of terror (from another show). It always required you to do something or click or check what not. A true hassle, but worth it in the name of science. It was a lot but fun that you could chat with others too.

Then going there you could go wherever you wanted to, you got a thing to trace where you went to, which was tiny and meet everyone. We had to wear mouth masks but everyone took them off after 5 minutes, ha.

There were some changes in the line-up, as Donnie could not make it last minute, and Jett Rebel was replaced by Gotu Jim. S10 decided to sing a bit (which was all long before we knew she would do Eurovision). The show was great fun, it was so amazing to be able to dance again, meet other people, experience a festival and pop shows, and just have a great time.

Setlists are found here, but there’s not a lot of info! Maan her show was cute, where she had a few hits and an okay set, and even Snelle came to join for their duet together: Blijven Slapen. It was so much fun to dance with my friends again and sing with each other. A discovery was our new replacement; Gotu Jim, that was such an experience. He was great and we had great fun on Pop een pil met Matthijs de Ligt! We all did a little shouting back and forth, being the iconic; Astra – Zenica! Ha. Fun times. Vunzige Deuntjes Soundsystem is so necessary on such an event, to really get the festival vibes going. I heard a lot of great songs and was very happy to dance to them. Chef’Special, like always, delivered too and I was so happy to see them again.

Results

I had my test from after the festival back, and thank god it was negative! I did feel great and it was such an experience to go. Really happy with it. Organizers and researchers are very positive about the ability to organize events again; seems like with proper caution & measures (test, temperature check) these do not have more risk than going to the supermarket or so.

This podcast: Afl. 80: Alles over de fieldlabs from De Machine talks about how the events went, results, and much more. It’s very interesting to listen to. I really recommend the podcast if you are interest in the music industry and Dutch view on some things. It’s good informative and entertainment.

The results of the experiments are discussed in this video;

But then what happened? Well, sadly we all know and the Dutch government scaled down. So lots of things were paused again, new lockdowns, and Belgium got to organize events instead of us, with the results we shared with everyone. Messy but at least I joined this festival.