“We have a pool of people to draw from every time,” says Danny Damman, director of the Ziggo Dome. “It’s not 100 percent, like it was in 2019, but it’s stabilized.” However, the Amsterdam Event Hall is still looking for staff, says Damman. ‘We are still looking for people, we even created a special site. There are still many vacancies there, but it’s not as bad as it was a few months ago.
Other side jobs
Rotterdam Ahoy was also positive. “We really had a staff shortage in the spring,” says director Jolanda Jansen. For example, young people have sometimes found other side jobs after the closure due to the corona pandemic, says Jansen. ‘It ended up going well, sometimes doing the same thing with fewer people. But now that scarcity is less.’
Jansen noticed in the autumn that the event hall was no longer under-staffed. “Then the temp agencies suddenly asked us if we still needed people.” Security deficiencies have also been virtually resolved. “In general, we now have enough security guards.” Finding technical personnel is still sometimes difficult, admits Jansen, but according to the director, this was the case even before the coronavirus pandemic.
Technicians
Jeroen Bartelse, director of TivoliVredenburg in Utrecht and co-president of Kunsten ’92, an umbrella organization for the cultural sector, agrees that there is still a shortage of technicians in particular. He sees it in the whole industry and also in TivoliVredenburg itself.
013 Poppodium in Tilburg is also currently experiencing some problems with staff shortages, but indicates that this has not been a major problem for the poppodium anyway. “We work with a lot of volunteers,” says a spokesperson. “That helps too.”