Traders try to sell tickets for the Remembrance Day ceremony

Ticket touts have been trying to make money out of tickets for the national Remembrance Day ceremony in central Amsterdam, following the decision by city officials to require attendees to register in advance.

The measure is one of a string of security steps being taken to offset the risk that the ceremony and the two-minutes silence will be disturbed. Only 10,000 people will be allowed onto the Dam for the event, rather than the 20,000 who usually attend.

Now online trading platform Marktplaats says it has removed several reservations for the event which were being offered for a price. One seller was even looking to auction his tickets. 

“This is not the idea,” said event organisers Nationaal Comité 4 en 5 Mei. People who cannot attend for some reason should cancel their registration so it becomes available again, the organisation said. 

All the 10,000 tickets were taken on the day the registration system was launched. 

As part of the more stringent safety measures every visitor will be searched upon arrival and all flags and other political symbols will be confiscated. According to the Parool, t shirts with the slogan “free Palestine” will also be banned, even though, according to experts, there is no legal basis to do so.

The Netherlands will fall silent for two minutes at 8 pm on Saturday May 4, as the country remembers the Dutch who died in World War II and subsequent wars.

Trains and cars will come to a halt and there are no take-offs and landings at Schiphol airport during two minutes’ silence, which takes place at 8 pm. Shops and supermarkets are required by law to close at 7 pm, and bars and restaurants warn their clients that the music will stop for a short period of reflection.

The main ceremony, attended by the king and queen, takes place on the Dam but there are hundreds of others all over the country.