Dutch dance lovers offered lockdown relief at test event – VIDEO

Dance music lovers in Amsterdam were offered a short relief from COVID-19 lockdown on Saturday, treated to their first live show in over a year while serving as guinea pigs in a research project.

A total of 1,300 people were allowed at a carefully orchestrated test event in Amsterdam’s biggest music hall, the ZiggoDome, which in normal times has a capacity of up to 17,000.

Dancing to tunes delivered by Dutch DJs Sam Feldt, Sunnery James & Ryan Marciano and others, the fans were followed in all their movements and contacts through a tag they were made to wear, in an effort to see how events might safely be opened up for the public again.

“It’s unbelievable. I feel like a kid, I was jumping and screaming walking in”,

Sunnery James told Reuters before his show.

“Hopefully we can show governments around the world that we can make this happen.”

All guests needed to test negative for coronavirus 48 hours in advance and were urged to take another test five days after the event.

Inside, they were divided into six groups, all with different guidelines on social distancing and face masks and with varying degrees of freedom to move around.