Infiltrating the Porsche meets Rolex event in the Dutch UFO
April 2017. We had it all planned out. Traveling from Utrecht to Eindhoven by train, my girlfriend and I would stay the night at a very blue tiny house on Strijp-S, a former industrial area built by Philips.
Remember the tiny houses hype? Feels very 2017, in The Netherlands at least
But first, we would visit the Evoluon. A large, flying saucer-like building in Eindhoven which had a special event going on that day.
Walking around the building, we finally discovered a set of very large closed doors. As we approached, one of the doors opened and two men walked out, drinks in hand.
"Is this the entrance?" we asked.
"Oh yeah, go on in!" one of the men said with a smile, holding the door open. "It'll be fun!".
With a little hesitation we decided to go inside. There we found ourselves in a large room where a group of nicely dressed people had gathered. At this point we realized that this was not the EVO-Lumen light art exhibit that we intended to visit. Instead, this room was filled with shiny Porsche sports cars, and tables showcasing equally shiny Rolex watches.
Oops
I am reminded of one of my favourite videogames, 'Hitman: World of Assassination'. In this game you infiltrate locations such as a fashion show, a racing car event, or a night club. Your goal: Assassinate a specific person, usually someone rich and powerful who has done something horrible.
What makes the game stand out from other stealth games, is that you're not sneaking around in the dark to avoid guards. Instead, you hide in plain sight by disguising yourself with the right outfit. For example, that of a waiter, security guard or mechanic. This allows you to casually walk into private areas that you're not supposed to be in. It's fun, tense and often a bit silly.
The perfect disguise for any occassion
Unfortunately for us, we were not properly prepared for the assignment, wearing our hoodies and backpacks to this Porsche meets Rolex event. There were also no conveniently placed waiter outfits lying around for us to steal, and I wasn't very confident in my ability to silently knock people out and steal their clothes. And while I'm sure there were some rich people in this room, I can't say if any of them were evil.
So while it was tempting to blend in and grab a free drink at the bar at least, I figured this was not likely going to be a success. We decided to quickly walk across the room to the exit on the other side. Eventually we found the proper entrance to the museum and had a good laugh about the whole thing!
We only spotted this sign on the way out 😆
While looking back at this trip 8 years later, I discovered the event organizers posted an after movie on Youtube. Which was also the source of the Porsche picture above, as we were too flabbergasted at the time to take any pictures inside. It was nice to be reminded of what the event we briefly walked in on looked like. If this had been a Hitman level, you would have dropped that giant disco ball on someone's head!
I hope you enjoyed reading about this strange little experience! We spent the rest of that weekend sightseeing in the Strijp-S area which was quite nice.
We did not sneak into Area51
For today's tangentially related music recommendation: A ghost story about an old watchmaker, and a vengeful wife who comes back from the dead to haunt him. Enjoy!
Steven Wilson - The Watchmaker (Bandcamp / Spotify / Youtube))