Election Day banner prank claims Amsterdam Erotic Center construction starts Thursday
A striking banner was seen hanging prominently on Wednesday at the intended location of Amsterdam’s Erotic Center. The very large banner is made to look like it is promoting a construction project carried out by the municipality, and states that “Amsterdam is working to realize an erotic center,” with the start date set for Thursday, the day after the municipal election. A photograph of the sign was captured by local newspaper Parool, and included in their liveblog about the election.
The banner was hung along the A10 ring road, near the RAI on Europaboulevard. The current coalition government running the municipality, comprised of politicians from GroenLinks, PvdA, and D66, wants to build an Erotic Center there and move sex workers from the Red Light District to the facility.
They believe the plan will help relieve tourism pressure in the old city center. This is much to the displeasure of the residents of Amsterdam-Zuid, who are very much against the idea of adding a high-rise brothel and entertainment facility across the street from the convention center.
The protest action seems to originate from said locals, trying to keep the topic in the spotlight for the City Council elections. A spokesperson for Amsterdam confirmed to Parool that the municipality did not place the banner.
A few months ago, the arrival of the Erotic Center seemed to be a done deal, but then D66 scrapped it from its election manifesto. As a result, it no longer has a guarantee of majority support in City Council. Though that can change depending on Wednesday's election results.
Residents of the city seemed to be largely against the creation of the Erotic Center, and are also against a proposal that would ban tourists from entering the city’s cannabis coffeeshops. Those details emerged from an initial analysis of the political positions of over 20,000 voters who used the Kieskompas guide to determine which parties hold similar beliefs.
Only about 17 percent of those residents support the creation of the Erotic Center, Kieskompas told AT5 on Tuesday. “I am very much against it. The Wallen, it belongs to the city,” one city center resident told Kieskompas in reference to the neighborhood encompassing Amsterdam’s main Red Light District.
While D66 has shelved its support of the Erotic Center for now, both GroenLinks and PvdA still kept the issue in their 2026 election platform statements. The latter kept the door open for an alternative solution on the condition that “it leads to a substantial reduction in windows and an improvement in the quality of life in the center areas.”
GroenLinks firmly backs the plan despite strong public opposition from the neighborhood that would host the Erotic Center, and residents in the center who are skeptical that it will solve problems.
City residents are not even unified when it comes to over-tourism, one of the coalition’s most prominent issues. “About half say that tourism may be scaled back, and about half also think that is absolutely not the case,” said Jereoen van Lindert from Kieskompas to AT5.
Currently, about 70 percent of those who live in the heart of the city center want to see more effective measures to address overcrowding. “It is true, however, that if you look here in the region, in the Wallen area, there is more support for reducing tourism,” he stated.
Also unpopular is the current coalition’s renewed effort to ban foreign tourists from coffeeshops. Only about 25 percent seem to support the idea. “So the politicians have some explaining to do there about why they want to do this,” said Van Lindert.
