Serious Request: A Dutch Phenomenon - And HAPPY NEW YEAR!

First of all, we would like to wish you a prosperous and happy 2015.

We are planning on writing more interesting blogs for you this year, and hope to add many more tasty goods to our online shop, so you can take a little piece of the Netherlands into your home.
You can also find us on Facebook and Twitter, where we also try to keep you updated on the latest news, fun facts, recipes, blogs, and pretty pictures of our small but beloved Holland!

Serious Request

We have recently mentioned this phenomenon on our Facebook page, but for those who have never heard of Serious Request before and want to know why this is such a big deal, we will explain.

Serious Request has been held for ten years in a row now, it started in 2004, and has grown into quite a phenomenon since then.
Who organizes Serious Request, and what is it?



Serious Request is an initiative from Radio 3fm, a popular Dutch radio station.
The week before Christmas, 3 of 3fm’s Deejays are being locked up in a glass house, where they will be playing requested songs for money.
The money they raise with this, is donated to the Red Cross to help those in need. The deejays don’t eat during their time in the glass house, but they do get nutritious fruit and vegetable juices a couple of times a day to stay healthy.
Last year they raised money for the cause ‘Hands off our girls’, which means that the money will go to Red Cross projects which help women who were raped in areas of poverty and where there’s war, to recover and to educate.

Haarlem

Last year, the glass house went to the city of Haarlem, but every year 3fm chooses a different city to visit with its glass house. This year, 2015, Serious Request will be held in the city of Heerlen. Which deejays will be occupying the house, will be announced later this year.

Requests

Serious Request has become a national ‘thing’. You can visit the glass house in the city it’s in, but you can also watch it on tv, 24 hours a day, for the whole week. The deejays work in shifts, and there are different ways to request a song that you want to hear. You can do this online, but also make a phone call to the callcenter. There’s a minimum of 10 euro’s that has to be donated for your song to be played, but there are lots of people who donate more.
The station’s deejays who aren’t locked up in the glass house, travel through the country that week to also raise money by doing other (fun) jobs and side projects.

Daily update

Every day, the deejays will get an update of how much money is raised. In the years that have gone by, playing music isn’t the only way they raise money any more. Various artists come to play in the glass house, and give away something to bid on in the Serious Request auction, there’s an online shop, and lots of Dutch people raise money with their colleagues or friends and present a cheque at the glass house somewhere during the week before Christmas.

Christmas Eve

At Christmas eve the deejays are being released from the glass house, and are brought to a large stage where thousands of people await and welcome them.
Well-known artists perform there for free. On stage the deejays will receive an apple, the first solid food again. Next they announce the amount of money that was raised during the week, and it has become kind of a national sport to beat last year’s amount.
In last year’s edition they raised no less than: € 12.380.438 for the Red Cross!




 

Tags: #seriousrequest #radio #101tv #SR2014 #deejays #happynewyear #newyear #nieuwjaar