25_fan_picnics

Two Fan Picnics in 2025. A photo impression

Saturday July 5th: a photo impression of the first fan picnic. (To our regret we cannot be present at the third fan picnic).

First fan picnic on Saturday July 5th 2025 The group photo was taken by Julia, after the Danish fans had already left. So, we had a fan get-together of 19 fans, of 8 nationalities. (NZ, Australia, Brasil, DK, UK, NL, Be, CZ. That was great!!

July 5th, 2025 YES!!!! The historic wall and the bastion “Five Heads” are rebuilt now!! Very nice view from our picnic place in the City Park.

Libby, Paul, Bill

Libby, Torben, Kirsten, Marlene, Bill, Annette, Paul

Bill, Annette, Angela, Paul

Libby Heinsohn-Deer, Australia

Kathy, Julia, unknown

Paul, Antonia

Marlene, Lillian, Angela, Paul, Patrick Verweire

Ineke, Irene (daughter), Ruud, Robert Homewood

Sue Homewood (UK), Hana (CZ)

Saturday July 12th: a photo impression of the second fan picnic. (To our regret we cannot be present at the third fan picnic).

Meanwhile, we had been approached by Hannah, a filmmaker from Amsterdam who was interested in making a short documentary about the global connections of André Rieu fans in Maastricht. She had found us through our website. I invited her to the fan picnic of July 12th, hoping several fans would be there. She brought cameraman René and they were able to film and interview several fans. So, this was again a special experience for us. As an added surprise, Gary Bennett tenor, came by. That was the icing on the cake!

Maggy Gray, N-Ireland

Sue and Richard Dawney (UK)

Linda and Richard Oswick (UK), Gary, Ineke.

Julia and Kathy (NZ) with Hannah and René

Irena (Greece), Birgit Ottink and Gisela (Germany)

Ineke, June Sprules (SA), Barbara and Birgit (Germany)

Linda and Richard Oswick, Garry Bennett, Cheryl (Gary’s sister) and her husband Mark, (Australia)

In the end, we counted 17 fans, not all of whom are in Julia's group photo. We hope the film team still got a good impression of the event and can use the footage.

For comparison, a group photo from 2018. After the virus and the two-year lock-down, things were never the same again.