Merlijn Poolman started his career with organizing metal shows and tours, but after founding a nightclub (Subsonic, Groningen) in 2011 he gradually got more involved into the world of dance music. In 2018 he became the Night Mayor of the Dutch city of Groningen and in that role structurally worked on the link between the government, the club venue owners and (most important) the party people themselves.
As leader of the Groningen Night Council, member of the Dutch Popcoalitie (advisory board to the government) and former European Music Council fellow-member Merlijn loves to balance between the formal policy making and the raw underground music culture that formed his career.
After his first visit to China in 2014 he went there 11 times in total with cultural exchanges in the music business as main goal. In the same year he organized his first Yin Yang music festival taking place at the Great Wall of China and in 2017 organized and funded the first China Pavilion Conference during Amsterdam Dance Event.
In 2018 these developments led to setting up a service called Gateway2 China, that offers Chinese social media accounts and content creation to Western artists.
This is to be seen at www.g2c.nl
Currently in The Netherlands with COSIMO Foundation he and his partners aim to raise more funding for cultural projects and in this process COSIMO creates matches with the business world and the cultural sectors.
Out of innovative use of tax incentives, instead of the usual governmental culture budgets, this new form of project funding leads to a structural increase of projects that were difficult to produce before since they aspire to create cultural impact rather than profit.
Favorite quote:
“A good idea is formed with a beer at night and worked out with a coffee during the day”