Tunify anchored at Rotterdam Ahoy for 9 years

Ahoy is best known by the broader public for its arena. It accommodates 16,000 visitors, making it a hot choice for large concerts and sporting events. As well as this, there are 6 large exhibition halls available to hire separately or collectively. The head of project management, Rosanne Spronk, guides her team to ensure every event that takes place at Ahoy runs flawlessly. And there can sometimes be as many as 3 events at once.

'But since Ahoy's 50th birthday in 2021, that number could be even higher,' says Rosanne. 'We have increased our capacity by 50% thanks to our new international conference centre. The new building is four storeys tall with a total of 35 rooms. At the same time, the largest auditorium serves as a concert hall for 7,000 music fans.'

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Tunify in the main building, foyer and reception rooms

Ahoy has been a loyal Tunify user for 9 years now. Rosanne: ‘I can honestly say I no longer remember how we played music before then. But I can tell you how smoothly it works now. Ahoy has 2 Tunify subscriptions: one for the foyer and reception rooms at Ahoy Arena and one for Ahoy Plaza, the main building for the whole site.’

‘Our visitors spend time in the foyer and reception rooms before a large concert or event begins,’ continues Rosanne. ‘We tune the music to the event of the day. Sometimes, we play music by specific artists. Other times, we choose an atmosphere that, in terms of genre and feeling, complements the scheduled performance.’

‘There’s less variation needed for Ahoy Plaza,’ says Rosanne. ‘That’s the main building through which all the visitors enter. If a client is hiring the entire site? They’re welcome to request specific music. But quite frequently, there’s more than one event taking place at once. Then we choose general background music, like ‘Easy Jazz’ from the ‘Jazz Club’ category, or cheerful pop music from the ‘Discothèque’ category in Tunify Blue.’

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Music for an unforgettable customer experience

The café workers always used to control the music player. But over time, the choice of music landed in the hands of the project managers. ‘That seemed more logical to us,’ explains Rosanne. ‘At the end of the day, we are the ones who run the events from A to Z and need to deliver an unforgettable, streamlined customer experience. The music is part of this.’

‘Tunify plays from our security office,’ continues Rosanne. ‘Our security guards press play or change the channel. But they do it on request from one of the project managers. Sometimes, we just give them a general atmosphere or a genre, other times we put together a list.’

In doing so, Ahoy makes good use of both the simplicity and the wide range of choices that are characteristic of Tunify. For example, for a Dutch-language concert, it’s easy to call up and play all the Dutch-language tracks with a specific atmosphere. Do you want even more control? Then you make your own playlists in which you select every song. The handy ‘Search’ functions in Tunify make the selections a piece of cake.

Would you like to discover Ahoy?  Have a look on their website.