page_title: Serious Request
section_title: Creation – aid for Darfur (2004)
hierarchical_section_title: Serious Request / Creation – aid for Darfur (2004)
caption_attribution_description: Nederlands: Giel Beelen tijdens Serious Request 2007 in glazenhuis in Den Haag
context_page_description: Serious Request is a family of annual multi-day, multimedia fundraising events for International Red Cross initiatives, typically hosted by radio stations in the week before Christmas. The project was begun in 2004 by Dutch public pop music radio station 3FM. Serious Request projects have since been adopted in Belgium, Switzerland, Sweden, Kenya, South Korea, Austria, Latvia and Portugal.
  The DJs make an interactive, themed broadcast around the clock, while regular programming on the station is suspended. Instead 3FM and its website are completely dedicated to the event, which is also transmitted as a continuous audio and video live-stream. Additionally there is television coverage, integration with social media, and a dedicated mobile app.
  Funds are raised in a few different ways. DJs play songs requested by listeners and visitors, in return for their donations. Celebrities and artists also donate personal possessions or offer unique opportunities to meet them, which are auctioned off. Straightforward donations are made into the project's bank-account, and by physical visitors depositing cash and cheques into the house's letterbox.
context_section_description: Prominent DJs Rob Stenders and Ruud de Wild left radio 3FM in 2004, and were later replaced by Giel Beelen and Wouter van der Goes. During the interim, station manager Florent Luyckx started making changes in programming to shore up ratings, especially for December. After the Russian Beslan school massacre has ended in September, the station wanted to aid the victims and their relatives; however, the humanitarian organisation handling the crisis declined their offer. When the station then approached the Dutch Red Cross, they pleaded for help in matters overlooked by the news media, such as two million IDPs and refugees in the war-torn region of Darfur, Sudan. This was then made the cause for the first Serious Request radiothon from 20–24 December 2004, using the slogan Jouw druppel op een gloeiende plaat.
  In a revised formula, DJ Jan-Willem Roodbeen suggested DJs living and broadcasting from a stationary structure with a lot of windows, not unlike the Big Brother TV-house. Giel Beelen added that the occupants should endure some hardship to express solidarity, and therefore suggested fasting.
  In December 2004, a small temporary radio studio with large glass facades – a "glass house" – was erected in the Neude square in the centre of Utrecht. Three radio DJs, Giel Beelen, Wouter van der Goes and Claudia de Breij, lived in the house for five days, fasting in solidarity with those in Darfur, and broadcasting Serious Request 24 hours a day on 3FM.
  In the course of the event, a particular record began to stand out, because it was requested often, and it lifted the DJs' spirits. In 2004 this was "Galvanize" by the Chemical Brothers. Later editions have shown that this mechanism occurs every time – the particular track is then deemed the 'anthem' of that year's Serious Request.
  In its first year the project collected €915,955, and received the 2004–05 Marconi Award for best radio program.
caption: DJ Giel Beelen, co-creator of Serious Request, occupied the Glass House eight times through 2014
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