Former youthcenter the Effenaar plays
an important role in my life.
I was visitor, employee and voluntair.
Now I'm a neightbour and visitor .
Where shall I start?
There's much changed in the last 20 years in the Effenaar.
From an obscure background there's now a culturel center,
which is still in movement and growing.
My personal view on the Efrfenaar is one
based on experiences and trouble.
I think it's a pity that the Effenaar changed from a
youthcenter into a cultural center to get more money.
Young people with few money and a lot of free time,
stand more often for a closed door,
because the tickets to get in are too high after they spent
their money on alcohol, drugs, food, clothing, etc.
Now they got more money again to rebuild and expanse
the Effenaar and I know what will happen:
I can talk also about
the kind of programming,
the black money circuit, the people at the entrance
and other mess in the organisation,
like the rights of the volunteers or what they suggest.
This I'll leave that for the volunteers, but my own
experiences taught me that it won't change,
because the aime of the volunteers is mostly to
get in for free and cheap drinks, but maybe someday
somebody will stand up and get all the volunteers on one line
and start an action with maybe a result.
But I have seen beautiful things and hear fantastic music.
I worked hard, drunk and smoke regular, and killed
a few nights with the volunteers.
Even now and then I experienced some cultur,
but the latest years it was mostly just amusement.
Even the dance nights are presented
and accepted as culturel events.
The audience accept it and the organisation laughs,
because those dancenights don't cost a fuck.
The comming rebuilding and enlarging of the big hall so
it's possible to get 1200 people inside is been forced to do,
because of the pressure of clubs like Paradiso and
Milkyway in Amsterdam with over 1200 visitors and
also the new east European market, who snatch away all the
good bands, so they only need to play 2 or 3 times in Holland.
This is just bullshit because there are a lot of great
upcomin'
bands and only good programming brings the people in.
Ofcourse the big booking offices are interested in the Effenaar
and they decide who plays there.
Luckaly it's still possible to do it on another way.
There are still enough places that do their own bookings.
Who are looking for more than just amusement,
but challenges and real culture.
Still the Effenaar is important for me and for the province.
In the surrounding of Eindhoven there are still a lot of smaller
centra that programm unknown bands and special events.
The Effenaar will still go on and even
sometimes you'll see something good.
I hope that the staff will see that small programms are
important and need far more money then they get now.
It will never give profit, but these are the only programms
for the people, who are not interested in dance and cultgroups.
Well, all you read above is just a fraction
of what is interesting or terrible for me.
I dive in later much deeper in this subject and I will put
some sound, pictures and other stuff on these pages,
from the time I was working or organizing in this center.
Ofcourse you can react. Through e-mail for example,
and I try to put it in a discussion group.
Everything that I received you find back on the reaction page,
and we will see, where it's ends.
Click on Reaction to see the reactions.
Click on
May 1996 Guus Veldhuis