In the latest episode of the podcast The Heart of the Nieuwmarkt neighbourhood Koen Vollaers is the guest: entrepreneur, vibe-creator, and the driving force behind the Aprilfeesten Amsterdam, which are celebrating their 36th edition this year. Host Irma Thomas and sidekick Jim Zielinski speak to him about a lifetime of building the city, from the Nieuwmarkt neighbourhood in Amsterdam where he has lived and worked for over forty years.
The Nieuwmarkt district of Amsterdam as a starting point
Koen Vollaers moved into the Nieuwmarkt district of Amsterdam in 1982. What he found was not an idyllic city centre: the Zeedijk was a no-go area, the historic Waag building was boarded up, and the Nieuwmarkt square was full of parked cars. The neighbourhood bore the scars of the Amsterdam metro riots: a battlefield, as he himself describes it. And yet, he stayed. He still lives on the Kalkmarkt, together with his wife Astrid, and now surrounded by six children and grandchildren.
The origin of the April Festivals Amsterdam
In the mid-eighties, Koen Vollaers decided the Nieuwmarkt needed something other than protests. With theatre equipment from the travelling festival Boulevard of Broken Dreams: tents, furniture, a mobile kitchen, he, along with local residents, reclaimed the Nieuwmarkt square. He climbed up the drainpipe at the Waag, tapped into it for power and water, and simply began. The municipality of Amsterdam knew about it and turned a blind eye, as they also had some making up to do with the neighbourhood after the metro riots.
This became the first edition of the April Feasts. Now there have been 36. The carousel is still there, La Molina, the small Ferris wheel on Nieuwmarkt square where you can eat inside. And every year it is once again Amsterdam's biggest reunion: former residents, people who grew up in the Nieuwmarkt neighbourhood, and people who have never left, find each other again on that same square.
Entrepreneurship in Amsterdam: bringing rather than taking
Besides the April Festivals, Koen Vollaers was instrumental in a series of Amsterdam venues that permanently changed the city's nightlife: the West Pacific at the Westergasfabriek, Club Eleven in the vacant Post CS building, and Pension Homeland at the Marineterrein. None of these projects started with a business plan. Instead, they began with a question: what do this place, this neighbourhood, Amsterdam, need?
For Koen, doing business in Amsterdam isn't about making profit as quickly as possible, but about investing in the place where you also earn your money. His advice to new Amsterdam entrepreneurs is as simple as it is insightful: ask yourself the 'why' question. And give as much as you take.
Thinking small in a changing city
Despite concerns about the increasingly crowded city centre of Amsterdam, the monoculture of tourist catering, the disappearance of iconic venues such as the Cotton Club, the conversation remains anything but gloomy. Koen Vollaers concludes with a message he will also take to the April Festivals themselves: try to think micro, nurture your own environment, and allow yourself the happiness of the moment. Because even in challenging times, you are allowed to be happy for a while.
Watch and listen to the full conversation with Koen Vollaers above. Or listen here to our other episodes of the podcast The Heart of the Nieuwmarkt Neighbourhood, with entrepreneurs and residents from Amsterdam's Nieuwmarkt neighbourhood.
