The Dutch implementation of STAD in Europe will focus on the festival setting and takes place in the municipality of Rotterdam. Rotterdam is the second largest municipality of the Netherlands, where many festivals take place year in year out. In the Netherlands festivals are getting more and more popular among young people and are partly replacing nightlife activity. With this growing popularity, the municipality has grown in its attention towards alcohol related problems on festivals. The festival organisations themselves have been adapting their strategies to reduce these problems. Two quite common aspects are underage drinking and binge-drinking. However, at present the compliance with the legal age limit and the ban on over-serving is still too low at these festivals. Also pre-loading by visitors prior to entering the festival areas is considered to be a problem. At one of these festivals the STAD intervention will be implemented in the coming period in order to limit the availability of alcohol to underaged and drunk patrons.
Based on the STAD model in Sweden an adjusted festival model has been developed that aims to reduce alcohol related problems.
In the past festival’s the public stakeholder’s main focus has been on safety through a, very successful, zero tolerance approach. There has been less attention so far for prevention, especially of health problems. A tailor made intervention (adjusted to the Dutch festival setting) will be created with the municipality of Rotterdam and with the contribution of key stakeholders such as the public health service, police, and the local hospitality industry. During the festival in 2017 observations and evaluations will take place in order to boost the interventions development. The implementation of the whole comprehensive model is scheduled to be executed in 2018.
For information at national level of the intervention being developed, please contact Joost Mulder – jmulder@trimbos.nl or visit our websites.
