Power along the canal: when the city celebrates, the show goes on

The city's biggest week

From 25 July to 8 August Amsterdam hosts WorldPride, with hundreds of thousands of visitors, stages across the city and, on Saturday 1 August, the canal parade along the canals. This year there is even a proper grandstand stadium on the Prinsengracht. Wherever people celebrate, power is needed: for stages and sound, for bars and refrigeration, for lighting once the sun goes down.

And that power rarely comes out of a wall socket. A canal has no heavy-duty connection on the quay. What is there instead is what you see in the photo above: a yellow distribution box on a stand, with thick cables running across the cobbles to the places where it all happens.

Power and water: a trade in itself

Electricity along the water calls for expert work. Distribution boxes stand raised on stands, safely above the ground and able to withstand a shower of rain or a wave washing over the quay. Every circuit is protected by residual current devices, cables lie in mats or ducts so nobody trips over them, and everything is earthed according to the rules that apply. That is exactly the difference between an extension lead from the shed and a professional temporary installation.

We have been doing this work for almost ninety years, four generations long, at markets, funfairs and festivals across the country. From the weekly market that needs a single connection point to an event site with heavy road distribution boxes and hundreds of metres of cable.

Quiet enough to hear the party

Where there is no grid connection nearby, you place a generator. But nobody wants to hear a diesel engine droning through the music. That is why our generators are super silent: muffled to the level where you barely notice them from a few metres away. They run on HVO50, which cuts CO2 emissions considerably compared with ordinary diesel.

From final distribution board to road box

Temporary power calls for temporary distribution. We rent out various types of distribution boxes and all the accompanying cables, from a simple extension lead to 120 mm² power cable. Delivered complete and collected afterwards, so that on Monday the quay looks as if nothing ever happened.

Organising an event of your own by the water, on a square or in a park? Take a look at our distribution boxes and cables or read how we supply power to events.

To everyone celebrating

On Saturday the canals will be painted in every colour of the rainbow. We wish everyone sailing, dancing or watching along a wonderful parade. And should you wonder where all that sound, light and chilled beer comes from: sometimes the answer is simply a little yellow box on the quay.