Event organizers in the Netherlands are taking legal action against the Dutch government.

F1 Dutch Grand Prix Zandvoort, DGTL, and numerous others are joining ID&T as co-plaintiffs in the proceedings. After the Dutch government lifted COVID-19 restrictions on events, cultural venues, and sporting events two weeks ago, it announced last Friday that new restrictions requiring limited capacity and seated attendees only would be put into place until at least August 13th.

With this new ban on all non-seated events, many organizers were forced to cancel events like ID&T’s Mysteryland and Decibel Outdoor festivals, as well as The Event Warehouse‘s WiSH Outdoor and Paaspop festivals.

“We join ID&T and the imminent summary proceedings because of the enormous [financial] consequences caused by the lack of clarity,” said The Event Warehouse CEO Joop Soree in a statement. “We need to know where we, and the events industry, stand.”

“For us it is also inexplicable internationally to not have clarity of the conditions under which we can organize the event three weeks prior to the event,” added Imre van Leeuwen, managing director of F1 Dutch Grand Prix Zandvoort. “It’s even more disappointing that, despite the good work of Fieldlab Events and the high vaccination rate the Netherlands has achieved, we may not be able to make the event a huge success with the whole world watching.”

Fieldlab Events carried out experiments and research to determine the safety of events without social distancing and other COVID-19 restrictions earlier this year. Those experiments were endorsed by the Dutch government.

“We are overwhelmed by the support we received from our visitors, artists and partners in the past days,” said ID&T CEO Ritty van Straalen. “The fact that so many parties in the market are joining us reflects perfectly what the impact is on the entire public events industry.”