Merlijn Poolman has been a familiar face on Groningen’s nightlife scene for more than a decade. He ran the popular Subsonic club on the Grote Markt for years, and ran for the position of night mayor three times before finally winning the title in 2018.
Groningen has one of the longest traditions of night mayors in the entire world: the very first person to hold the position was Henk Leupen in the 1980s, and it became an elected job starting in 2011. The winner serves a two-year term. Amsterdam has introduced the position in recent years, and the concept is gaining traction across Europe and some large American cities.
Poolman considers himself an ambassador and intermediary between Groningen’s cultural scene, from dance clubs to music venues and other businesses that come to life when the sun goes down, and the political and business community that operates during daylight hours.
During Experience Groningen this spring, foreign students and professionals heard from Poolman and Groningen’s “day” mayor, Peter den Oudsten – Poolman says that he sees it as part of his responsibilities as mayor to help internationals get in touch with the city’s nightlife and find their scene. The night mayor also wants to make it easier for small scale cultural events to have access to funding, but perhaps Poolman’s most ambitious goal is the creation of a nighttime city hall.
Poolman envisions a central location where the public health service agency GGD for party goers to seek advice about safely using legal drugs, including recommendations about dosing for users based on their weight, height, age and use of other substances, and a place to provide information to prevent sexual harassment, report any violations they experience in the city and even get tested for sexually transmitted infections.
The Northern Times’ Traci White followed Poolman around to get an idea of what a night in the life of the night mayor looks like.
Groningen’s night mayor Merlijn Poolman (left) and Tom van Ulsen, a programmer at Paradigm (middle), sit down with D66 alderperson Paul de Rook at Het Concerthuis. Poolman’s day – or night – started out with discussing a range of politically relevant issues with the alderperson, from setting up a rapid, small-scale funding programme for cultural events to support for Poolman and Student & Stad’s goal of opening a night city hall to provide guidance for party goers on safety when it comes to drug use and preventing sexual assault.On the top floor of the Martinus brewery in Groningen, Poolman (left) cracks up while Yashar Davoodi (right) clinks beer bottles with a colleague on Friday afternoon. Poolman has known the family that owns the brewery for years, back when the building itself used to be a printer, and he regularly drops by the brewery when making the rounds of bars and cafes in the city – on one such recent visit, Poolman and Davoodi struck up a conversation. Davoodi, along with the entire staff of the brewery, warmly greeted him when he came by, and Poolman says that maintaining these kinds of social and professional networks through casual conversations is an important part of his position as the night mayor. Poolman is also interested in developing a cultural buddy system for the city, where Dutch people who have an affinity with cultural venues and scenes in Groningen can meet up with newly arrived foreigners and help them connect to local nightlife and music.After a couple of late afternoon meetings in town, Merlijn Poolman and his girlfriend, Jeanique, make dinner together on Friday night before Poolman heads back out for the night. Poolman and Jeanique both have day jobs – Poolman also works to promote cultural connections between China and the Netherlands – and on paper, Poolman spends roughly five hours a week on his work as the night mayor of Groningen. But on this particular Friday evening, Poolman was attending meetings and events from 3:30 p.m. until well after 1 a.m. with about an hour at home for dinner in between.Groningen night mayor Merlijn Poolman raises a toast to the employees of WERC, a design studio and 3D printing company in Groningen, on the occasion of their tenth year in business. Many cultural entrepreneurs and creatives from the city gathered in the work space on the outskirts of the city on Friday night.Merlijn Poolman chats with Laurine Brugman, a product designer, at WERC on a Friday night. The city of Groningen is one of the first in the world to have an officially recognised and elected night mayor, which is a unique position serving as an ambassador and intermediary between the city’s night life and the day-to-day political and cultural scenes.Clusters of conversations scattered out across the work floor at WERC as the evening wore on.Even while taking a smoke break, night mayor Merlijn Poolman continues mingling, networking and catching up with friends and acquaintances from the cultural scene in a designated smoking room at WERC’s offices on Friday night.Half empty beer bottles, some of which had tiny lights inside them, piled up on the tables at WERC as the evening progressed. A fair amount of Poolman’s time is spent discussing ideas and taking the pulse of cultural luminaries in the city with a beer in hand.Before heading out to the next stop of the night, Merlijn leans against a wall and calls a contact to get more details about the location of the Kopjek dance party.Outside of SMOKE, a restaurant which used to be home to Merlijn Poolman’s Subsonic club, Poolman picks up a red clothes pin with the location of the night’s edition of the Kopjek dance event: Kokomo, on the opposite side of the Grote Markt.Merlijn Poolman gives a big hug to Bojan Aleksander, who was DJing inside SMOKE on Friday night. Poolman ran the Subsonic nightclub inside the building starting in 2011, and the project began as a graduation project when he was still a student. After years of venue changes and other internal politics, Poolman looks back fondly on the club, but says that the experience taught him that he is more interested in the social aspect of nightlife as a consumer than the business side as an entrepreneur.Merlijn Poolman walks past the technicolored, noisy rides of the May carnival on the Grote Markt on his way to Kokomo, which was hosting the tenth anniversary of the underground Kopjek party on Friday night.At the bar inside Kokomo in Groningen, night mayor Merlijn Poolman speaks with party goers in between rounds of beer during the Kopjek dance party on Friday night.Hundreds of locals take to the floor, surrounded by some younger visitors using laughing gas in balloons on the fringes of the party, during Kopjek on Friday night. Merlijn Poolman says that like other drugs and alcohol, using laughing gas in moderation should be tolerated in the city’s nightlife scene, but he does argue for people to be able to have access to information about drugs and safe conditions (i.e. recommendations for dosing to remain safe based on a person’s size and whether they have been drinking beforehand) through a night city hall location.
