On New Year’s Eve they compete against each other in the battle for viewing figures, but the corona crisis forces Youp van ‘t Hek and Guido Weijers and their colleagues to think together. They want to get more audiences to watch their New Year’s Eve conferences on television.
According to current guidelines, Van ‘t Hek (whose conference is scheduled on NPO 1) and Weijers (who announces the year on RTL 4) may not receive more than 30 people in the audience, even though the performances are recorded for television in the major theaters. Carré (Amsterdam, Van ‘t Hek) and De Maagd (Bergen op Zoom, Weijers). Both comedians fear that the performances will not be good, due to the lack of an audience.
In studio 100 people
Hans Floberg, director of Hekwerk, Van ‘t Hek’s impresario, confirms the contact with the “camp Weijers”. For example, the possibility of recording the conferences in a television studio is being considered jointly. Unlike in theaters – regardless of size – television studios are allowed to walk 100 people. Television producers, united in an alliance, have laid this down in a corona protocol for the entire industry in consultation with the RIVM and the Ministry of Economic Affairs.
For that reason, at the Sinterklaas show of Paul de Leeuw (last Saturday on RTL 4) and the Christmas special of All You Need is Love (on Christmas Eve on the same channel), 100 people were allowed to be on the studio floor, as long as they adhere to all terms of the protocol.
A New Year’s Eve conference could be registered with 25 crew members and 75 visitors, more than doubling the audience. Floberg: “We really think about it, even recording Youp and Guido’s performances one after the other in such a studio. But it does require a lot of improvisation, because then you only have a bare hall, with a concrete floor and a hollow sound. There is not yet a podium, not a single chair yet. How do we get that done? Anyway, soon we really have to make a decision. ”
Exemption requested from Halsema
Van ‘t Hek has asked Mayor Halsema of Amsterdam, who is also chairman of the local security region, for an exemption from the visitors’ scheme in Carré for the television registration of Korrel Zout, his tenth and possibly last New Year’s Eve conference. He would like to play for 250 people in the royal theater once. A formal answer has not yet been received, but Halsema made it clear to the cameras of AT5 that he did not want to cooperate in such an exceptional position.