A year of events in the run up to Amsterdam’s 750^th anniversary began on Sunday, with an opening concert of Dutch music at the Ziggo Dome.

The concert – which early on Sunday evening still had tickets available – featured Eurovision contestant Jeangu Macrooy and well-known names such as André Hazes,  S10, Donnie and the Metropole Orkest pop and jazz orchestra.

In the run-up to the event, top name actress and signer Willeke Alberti, 79, cancelled due to “a very difficult year”, replaced by Macrooy, while Dutch rapper Latifah was replaced by Dutch-Moroccan rapper, MocroManiac.

The aim of the event was to transform the stadium in south-east Amsterdam into a “musical time machine”, programming Dutch music old and new. It is the start of a year of some 300 events to celebrate the city’s 750th birthday. The oldest record of the Dutch capital is a document from Floris V, count of Holland, granting Amsterdammers a toll exemption on October 27, 1275.

Events planned so far range from a project on immigrant stories featuring a new kind of snack marrying Turkish baclava and the Dutch iced and cream-filled millefeuille “tompouce”, to an exhibition on the history of Amsterdam and a dance party on the car-free ring road on June 21, 2025.

The first was on Sunday morning, with a special mass in the Basilica of Saint Nicholas. “There’s something for everyone, and we hope that this means that Amsterdam will live in the hearts and minds of many more people in the Netherlands,” mayor Femke Halsema told NOS.

However, the city has struggled to raise the €15 million needed for the anniversary year and by September had only found 10% of this amount, reported the Parool.