{"id":7713,"date":"2018-08-10T14:40:43","date_gmt":"2018-08-10T12:40:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.pax.nl\/?p=7713"},"modified":"2025-10-30T09:07:36","modified_gmt":"2025-10-30T08:07:36","slug":"how-pax-brings-the-giants-to-leeuwarden","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.pax.nl\/en\/news\/how-pax-brings-the-giants-to-leeuwarden\/","title":{"rendered":"How PAX brings the giants to Leeuwarden"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Feet, matching shoes, a knee\u2014one by one, the parts of the three giants from French theatre company Royal de Luxe are arriving in Leeuwarden. PAX Group from Heerenveen is handling the pickup from Nantes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Seventeen trucks are needed to transport the puppets and all accompanying equipment to Leeuwarden. The first load arrived this past Monday at the WTC Expo grounds in Leeuwarden, where the French crew is assembling the giants. Two trucks were unloaded yesterday, and another is scheduled for today. The final load will be picked up in France on Tuesday, says Roelof Dijkstra (36), project manager at PAX Construction and Industrial Services in Heerenveen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The three giants\u2014a deep-sea diver, a little girl, and a dog\u2014will roam the streets of Leeuwarden on August 17, 18, and 19. Their exact route remains a secret. Three of PAX\u2019s trucks will actually take part in the performance\u2014one of them will carry a chair for the giant girl to sit on.
\u201cIt wasn\u2019t hard to find drivers for that,\u201d Dijkstra laughs. \u201cThey\u2019ll have a front-row seat.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dijkstra himself won\u2019t be driving, but he definitely plans to watch the spectacle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Roelof
Bron: Friesch Dagblad, Anja van der Laan, 3 augustus 2018<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Half a year of preparation<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The transport has been in the works for about six months. The theatre company brings its own cranes to suspend the giants\u2014and those, too, had to make their way to Leeuwarden. The crane for the diver alone weighs 28 tons and, even folded, stands about four meters tall. Trucks (with load) in Europe are generally allowed up to four meters in height. For anything above that, the company needed special transport permits in France, Belgium, and the Netherlands.
\u201cWe needed a special trailer underneath,\u201d explains Dijkstra. \u201cThe loaded combination ended up being 4.40 meters high.\u201d
So far, the journey has gone smoothly. \u201cThe only thing drivers have reported is a lot of road construction in France.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lots of buzz around the giants<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

This is a special assignment for the company, Dijkstra says.
\u201cSure, oversized loads are part of our daily business\u2014but this is something different. There\u2019s a whole different energy around it. The giants are part of the Cultural Capital programme, and 400,000 visitors are expected. It\u2019s great that we get to play a small part in that. Campgrounds and hotels are fully booked. This is really going to put Frysl\u00e2n on the map.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Feet, matching shoes, a knee\u2014one by one, the parts of the three giants from French theatre company Royal de Luxe are arriving in Leeuwarden. PAX Group from Heerenveen is handling the pickup from Nantes. Seventeen trucks are needed to transport the puppets and all accompanying equipment to Leeuwarden. The first load arrived this past Monday […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":7714,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7713","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pax.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7713","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pax.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pax.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pax.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pax.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7713"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.pax.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7713\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8366,"href":"https:\/\/www.pax.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7713\/revisions\/8366"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pax.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7714"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pax.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7713"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pax.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7713"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pax.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7713"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}