VEED Awards

What started as a simple idea to bring creators closer to their fans, grew into the largest award show of the Netherlands. Which later became known as “The Oscars of the YouTube industry”. The VEED Awards is an annual show that awards prizes to online pioneers working in this fast-growing industry. The public votes for their favourites in categories such as; best newcomer, best channel or best video but also, for example, the best Instagrammer or gamer.

We can no longer ignore platforms such as YouTube, Instagram or TikTok, and YouTubers Kelvin Boerma, Peter de Harder and Mert Ugurdiken have seen this coming for a long time. As founders of the Dutch YouTube industry, they decided to no longer wait for recognition "from Hilversum", but they joined forces with advocates of the creator culture; Maak. This is how the very first VEED Awards were created in 2015 and from that day onwards, Maak has been responsible for the creative interpretation of the show, the communication about the show and the entire production of the event itself.

It is April 2015 and the Westergasterrein in Amsterdam is filled with young people for VEED Festival. It is not until the crowd is joined by the online creators, when it becomes clear how big this industry has become. Everyone wants to have their picture taken with the men of StukTV, Kalvijn, Défano Holwijn, Mertabi, Teske and so on. This is also possible at VEED Festival, because this fan day is all about Meet & Greets and meeting the next generation of celebrities.

At the end of the day, the VEED Awards will be held for the first time. They were presented by none other than Défano Holwijn, who was responsible for the presentation until 2018. However, we said goodbye to the festival after the 2018 edition, to be able to focus even more on the growth of the award show.

In 2019, the VEED Awards already existed for five years. This was celebrated with an anniversary edition in the AFAS Live. A large venue that offers even more space for fans to see their heroes in real life. The show was opened by Sophie Milzink with a spectacular dance act and was musically supported by the men of Stuk. Football player Touzani not only showed his skills but also presented an award. Famke Louise showed why she has earned her spot in the music industry. Kris Kross Amsterdam also celebrated the party. A show with many great acts.

In addition to achieving the 5-year anniversary, there were also a number of records that were broken this year. In 2019, VEED reached the magical number of 2.2 million votes and more than 800,000 nominations. In addition, VEED obtained a media reach of 58 million and the newsletter was sent to 750,000 addresses. Partly due to these numbers, VEED is the largest public award ever in the Netherlands.