Erasmus Memories

From RSM to Eurovision

“Keep your distance from the artist, let them do their thing” – those are the guiding rules for Jolanda Jansen, director of Rotterdam’s Ahoy.

There was a moment when it looked as though the project was a failure: that the Eurovision Song Contest couldn’t be brought to the Netherlands after all.

As the director of Rotterdam’s Ahoy – the largest venue in town, and site of an emergency Covid-19 hospital just a few months earlier – it was up to Jolanda Jansen (Business Administration, 1996) to break the news to the city.

As she silently walked out from her phone call, she couldn’t suppress her smile any longer. The festival could go ahead!

We join Jolanda as she looks back over the last 20 years, along with a cast of characters that includes alderman Said Kasmi, singer-songwriter Jeangu Macrooy, journalist Jessica-Jane Stam and tennis legend Richard Krajicek, and more.

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