Ben Essing

In 1956, he was a law student and the president of the local Catholic youth club; to raise money for the club he got the Dutch Swing College Band, at the time the best-known Dixieland band in the country, to play in Op Hoop van Zegen, Blokker's auction hall—his father was the president of the auction.

Essing, only 25 at the time, raised money from local farmers to pay Armstrong, who canceled two shows elsewhere to come to Blokker and was apparently quite touched by the idea.

Armstrong and his orchestra played for four hours but were asked to stop: it was getting late and the town did not have accommodations for the ten thousand people who had come from all over the Netherlands and Belgium.

[6] The event continues to live on in the local imagination: a Beatles in Blokker monument was raised in 1999,[6] and in 2014 the fiftieth anniversary was celebrated with an exhibition.

[7] After The Beatles, Essing founded a booking agency for dance orchestras in Alkmaar, and had a brief and disappointing career in real estate.