29 May marked a special day for the Dutch event industry. Event clients, agencies and leading suppliers came together in Nieuwegein, Netherlands, for the Golden Giraffe Event Awards. The coveted awards honoured the most successful event showcases in the Netherlands.
The Golden Giraffe is the Dutch equivalent of the German BrandEx Award and the Italian BEA Word Award. Alongside the awards, NEXTLIVE, a platform for event clients, celebrated its successful market entry in the Netherlands. “For us, this day marks an important milestone on the way to becoming an international hotspot for marketing and event decision-makers,” says Hans Schriever, founder of NEXTLIVE.
Sjoerd Weikamp is a recognisable figure among international event experts. In the Netherlands, he and his colleague Robin van Leeuwen represent the face behind EventBranche.nl- a platform for the Dutch event industry, which was originally run as FZ Magazine by Reed Business Verlag. In 2019, the two Dutchmen founded NEXTLIVE, together with Hans Schriever. NEXTLIVE is a platform for the corporate marketing and event community, for brands, companies and organisations that strategically use live events and brand experiences in their marketing mix.
“We deliberately launched the platform in Germany first: Germany is home to the largest and most important event industry in Europe and ranks third in global comparison. Now I am personally delighted to be taking the next important step in the internationalisation of the platform with the successful market entry in the Netherlands,” says NEXTLIVE co-founder Sjoerd Weikamp.
NEXTLIVE: connecting people & brands by sharing knowledge
“NEXTLIVE stands for connecting people and brands through knowledge transfer: content, events, and education form the three central pillars. Our events are the focus here. In Germany, NEXTLIVE celebrated a successful premiere last year with the NEXTLIVE.FESTIVAL: a business festival for corporate event planners,” says Hans Schriever, the driving force and face behind NEXTLIVE in Germany. Event planners from brands and companies such as Samsung, Deutsche Bahn, NIO, Skoda, Volkswagen, Siemens, R+V Versicherung, Hager Group, Fraport, Volksbank and Sparkasse came to the premiere of the marketing and event festival in Wiesbaden.
“This year, with the NEXTLIVE.FESTIVAL in Wiesbaden, we will take the next first step towards an international hotspot for marketing and event planners. TUED, the Turkish event community, has already confirmed its participation, as has BEIC, the international Business Event Industry Club, which will come to the NEXTLIVE.FESTIVAL in Wiesbaden with a delegation of international event planners. Leading agencies such as VOK DAMS worldwide, Bavaria Entertainment, JOKE Event AG and drpG from Great Britain will be there again, as will several leading event suppliers from the Netherlands and Germany. And we have also succeeded in tying science to the platform of the marketing and event community,” says NEXTLIVE founder Hans Schriever.
NEXTLIVE.AWARDS – NEXTLIVE.SPRINGBREAK – NEXTLIVE.FESTIVAL
Think globally, act locally: NEXTLIVE will also be represented in the Netherlands with a series of events. “For example, we will convert the Golden Giraffe Event Awards into the NEXTLIVE.AWARDS, whereby the iconic Golden Giraffe will continue to be the prize that we will award for the most successful event showcases in the Netherlands,” says Sjoerd Weikamp. “The networking event on the beach in Scheveningen, the ‘Beach Branche Barbecue’, will be converted into the NEXTLIVE.SPRINGBREAK, where from 2025 onwards, we want to connect event planners from various European countries in particular with the international corporate marketing and event community.”
“We will place an even stronger focus on GenY, GenZ and Gen-Alpha, and we also want to bind students and young talents more and more to the NEXTLIVE platform, because they are the decision-makers of tomorrow and the day after tomorrow. Especially when it comes to discussing future-relevant topics, we have to think and act intergenerationally. With NEXTLIVE, we see ourselves as drivers of intergenerational dialogue,” adds Hans Schriever.
NEXTLIVE: From underdog to hotspot
Hans Schriever, Robin van Leeuwen and Sjoerd Weikamp found each other back in 2017 and worked out the first plans together. Step by step, the circle closed. “In the first few years, we deliberately flew under the radar, which was a wise decision, not least given the pandemic,” says Robin van Leeuwen, adding: “We took our first steps in 2015 with the HOLLAND PAVILION at the event trade fair BOE INTERNATIONAL. This pavilion then became the NEXTLIVE.PAVILLON at the BOE in 2019, a 300 m² event area with content and education from all over Europe – and the first encounter with the NEXTLIVE brand. The digital format NEXTLIVE.TV on the road to BOEred, a complete content format for the BOE trade fair during the pandemic, helped to ensure that the BOE brand remained digitally visible and in contact with its target audience even in times without live events.”
NEXTLIVE @ OMR: where digital innovations meet live impact
At the OMR Festival in Hamburg, Germany’s most important digital marketing festival with over 70,000 visitors every year, they presented NEXTLIVE.TV inspired by GROHE X, a format that they developed together with the sanitary brand GROHE. “With NEXTLIVE, we were the connecting element between digital marketing and live marketing,” says NEXTLIVE co-founder Robin van Leeuwen.
Further information about NEXTLIVE, the international platform for corporate marketing and event community is available at: www.nextlive.community.
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