Cultural centre P60 is deeply rooted in the local community of Amstelveen, a satellite town of Amsterdam. Known for its youth focus, the centre has a café-bar serving homemade burgers, a concert hall, workshop spaces and band rehearsal rooms. Talent development support and coaching is a priority focus for the centre. The centre also promotes visual art, in particular digital art, which is sometimes displayed on the building façade. Work by emerging artists is showcased in the café. A feature of the centre is its small full-time team of nine, augmented by more than a hundred local and four international volunteers, providing young people with training, travel, work experience and creative opportunities. 

The original impetus for P60 was that little to no provision existed in the city for young people, who had to travel into the centre of Amsterdam to find suitable activities. This led activists to lobby for facilities and in 2001 a designated, purpose-built music venue, P60, was opened in the newly designed city centre of Amstelveen. The venue takes its name from the city square where the centre is located, Plein 1960. P60 is run, to a great extent, both by and for young people, with music taking centre stage. The venue’s 200 activities draw around 45 000 people per year. The average annual budget is 1.5 million.  

 Younger age groups are considered “expensive” to programme for: they do not purchase drinks, so bar income from events is low, and additional security staff are required to ensure their safety, meaning costs are higher.  Without subsidies, these age groups tend to be neglected. P60 is able to provide events and activities aimed at young people because its public subsidy directly supports loss-making activity. P60 is not required to programme events with appeal across all ages, ethnicities and social groups, however, delivering a specific number of events per year for the 12–18 age range is a condition of its funding. In the liberal Netherlands, bars are allowed to operate in youth venues to raise revenue provided alcohol is not sold to people under the age of 18.  

Volunteers 

P60 relies on volunteers, and they are the backbone of the organisation. Our youngest volunteer is 16 and the oldest 58. The P60 café is also used weekly by seniors over the age of 60 for informal social meetings and cultural activities. The organisation chart is a wheel that illustrates how all employees, volunteers and stakeholders are equally important in keeping the wheel moving forwards. Most volunteers work in the food and beverage department. The programme and production, technical and marketing departments have fewer volunteers. Volunteers always work alongside a paid staff member and rented security officers ensure the freedom and safety of everyone at P60.  New volunteers are recruited by existing volunteers and with slogans like “Why not stand on the other side of the bar?” 

Volunteers must sign a volunteer contract, where they promise to follow the house rules, to attend their shifts (or arrange cover) and to respect everyone in order to gain the respect of everyone. Volunteers receive a warning after one offence and after two offences can no longer volunteer at P60. The whole P60 community feels like family, offering a safe space for personal development where individuals gain social, educational, cultural and workplace skills.  

Every year in July, the end of the season is celebrated with a legendary boat trip, complete with food and drinks. At the Christmas party, the names of volunteers who have worked for 5 years at P60 are unveiled on the pillar of fame at the café. Volunteers average 2.5 years at P60 and most go on to secure good jobs with the skills they have learned. 

International connections 

Located just 15 minutes from Amsterdam-Schiphol airport, Amstelveen is home to a very international population with more than 140 nationalities represented. Nearly 25% of the city’s 95 000 inhabitants were born overseas. At P60, this diversity is reflected not only in our volunteer crew, but also in our programming: from Bollywood parties, to Russian spoken comedy and K-pop events. 

Since 2005, the venue has been a member of Trans Europe Halles (www.teh.net), one of the oldest and most dynamic cultural networks in Europe. TEH has been at the forefront of repurposing abandoned buildings for arts, culture and activism since 1983. Based in Sweden, the network comprises 140 members in 40 different countries across Europe – from Norway to Georgia.  

Within this network, P60 is active in European programs like Creative Europe, Erasmus and the European Solidarity Corps (ESC). Through ESC, volunteers from other EU or partner countries spend a year at P60 for personal development. Besides hosting international volunteers – more than fifty to date – P60 also sends Dutch young adults abroad.  

Digital innovation 

While P60 remains the only pop venue in Amstelveen, there are more than 25 similar (and larger) venues within a 25km radius (Amsterdam, Haarlem, Hoofddorp). This is one reason P60 aims to stand out via digital innovation.  

In 2004, in collaboration with partner Gloria in Helsinki, P60 launched a virtual stage with interactive chat, webcam, web phone and NetMeeting. The initiative did not work out as intended; we were too early, given the software available at the time. With today’s open-source software, P60 now have the chance to build a new 3D stage parallel with the live stage. The challenge is to attract more (digital) visitors with a kind-of-live experience, where they can choose a personal avatar and explore and interact within the 3D stage. This is the follow up to our 2019 streaming project, in which new generation Canon cameras were placed in the concert hall, enabling us to record and edit videos for online event promotion.  

During the corona pandemic, in 2020–2021, P60 was able to maintain connections with our regular visitors by staying visible with frequent live streaming events. The package is also used by famous artists for rehearsing, recording and editing their shows. With our knowledge of young people, P60 can virtually deliver customized demand on supply so that the venue is also ready for Generation Alpha (those born in 2010 and later). The virtual setting provides endless possibilities for young people to engage with artists, even international acts, in a way that is not possible with a live stage.  

The author is Gerard Lohuis, director of P60.