Amsterdam's 750th anniversary celebrations begin with opening concert in the Ziggo Dome

Amsterdam celebrates its 750th anniversary on Sunday. There will be a grand opening concert in the Ziggo Dome and all kinds of activities throughout the city.

The 750th anniversary celebration promises to be a worthy tribute to Amsterdam's past, present, and future. The anniversary year will be opened in the Ziggo Dome with performances by André Hazes, Sef, Joost van Bellen, BELLA, S10, René Froger, Sophie Straat, Trijntje Oosterhuis, Berget Lewis, Donnie, Edsilia Rombley and Latifah, among others.

According to the organizers, the concert will be a celebration of “everything that makes Amsterdam so special”. This includes a medley of songs from the Jordaan, but the Metropole Orchestra will also play “the greatest Dutch dance hits”.

“We want to celebrate the anniversary year in a big way, so a grand opening is only fitting. With the concert, we really want to create something that the city and the Netherlands can identify with and with which we invite the whole country to celebrate with us,” says Sietse Bakker, program director of Amsterdam 750. The concert will be broadcast live on NPO 2 by AVROTROS at 8:25 p.m.

During the preparations for the concert, Bakker noticed that only a few Amsterdammers had been involved with the anniversary year so far. “There are a lot of people in the city who live with the day or have other things on their minds. And if you look at what's happening in the world around us right now, people are naturally preoccupied with that too.”

The program director hopes that the 750th anniversary of the capital will “really come alive” through the concert. With the concert, he wants to emphasize how important it is to celebrate, “even in difficult times, even in times when there are tensions in society”.

Bakker, who was previously responsible for the production of the Eurovision Song Contest in Rotterdam 2021, was inspired by the opening of the Amsterdam 700 anniversary year: “That was a somewhat staid concert in the Nieuwe Kerk, but still very festive.” This time it is to be a festive opening with as many Amsterdammers as possible in attendance. The Ziggo Dome has space for 15,000 people and the concert will be broadcast live by AVROTROS on NPO 2. “That makes it a moment when we invite the whole of the Netherlands to celebrate with us,” he says.

The opening of the jubilee year will also be celebrated in another way on Sunday. In the morning, Mayor Femke Halsema gave a speech in St. Nicholas Basilica during a Eucharistic celebration. "Let's take care of each other," she said.

In her speech, Halsema mentioned the "many diaconal projects" in the city that manage to reach "those in need" that the government "sometimes does not have access to or is not aware of". She mentioned long tables at Eid al-Fitr "where everyone is welcome to join" and synagogues where people find comfort, "especially in these times".

According to the Amsterdam mayor, "these are stories that portray part of our Amsterdam character. Stories of comfort, of humanity and gentleness. We need that. Especially in a time when the world is an inhospitable place. Where discrimination and polarization are growing stronger. And where we also see too many people lonely and abandoned in Amsterdam too often."

“And let us tell each other stories of faith, hope and love, because they inspire us to find new ways of togetherness, with which we can face our future in our old historic city,” Halsema concluded her speech.

On this special day, Amsterdam residents can visit the Palace on Dam Square for free and the City Archives will have a special breakfast and a free program with lectures, workshops, exhibitions, and guided tours. The toll privilege can also be viewed there again this year. This document with the date October 27, 1275, in which the city of Amsterdam is mentioned for the first time, is seen as the birth certificate of the city.