Commercial Director of the Jaarbeurs Peter van der Veer received the Phoenix Award 2021 this afternoon in the AFAS Theatre at the AFAS headquarters in Leusden. The award was presented during the Big Improvement Day by the State Secretary for Economic Affairs and Climate, Mona Keijzer and jury chairman Maxime Verhagen. The Phoenix Award is an annual award for companies that have successfully dealt with major setbacks.
Van der Veer: "Every crisis is an opportunity. You can see that as a cliché, but at the Jaarbeurs we really experienced it that way last year. The fact that, as an event location, we had to close the doors completely for a long time, for example, we used it to accelerate the implementation of innovations.
To better facilitate online events from large to small, we set up the Jaarbeurs Studios. Together with our partners iinii, Fraai, Coreworks and Martens AVR, we built the pop-up SCALA theatre in our halls, which complies with 1.5-metre measures while creating a personal setting. A great venue for up to 1040 guests. And we were able to give substance to the Jaarbeurs 's social role by facilitating the Municipality of Utrecht in counting votes for the Lower House elections, by hosting bridge classes and final exam classes, and by facilitating testing and vaccination by the GGD Utrecht.
Of course, we prefer to receive guests and visitors again as soon as possible, but in the meantime we have not been sitting still to make their experience at the Jaarbeurs even better. The Phoenix Award is great recognition for those efforts, many thanks to the judges for this, a boost for our team."
About the Phoenix Award
The Big Improvement Day is one of the best-known networking events in the Netherlands. Based on a positive philosophy, BID launched the Phoenix Award for companies and entrepreneurs who did not give up after a setback but managed to turn a defeat into a victory.
