Brussels sends actors in pyjamas to calm nightlife noise

They will roam the city streets looking for rowdy partygoers, asking them to sing a quiet lullaby

Last weekend authorities in Brussels launched the ‘Silent night’ (Douce Nuit) campaign to try and calm street noise in the busiest nightlife district in the city - Halles Saint-Géry. The campaign featured an actor duo dressed in pyjamas who walked the busy streets at night, asking citizens to sing them a lullaby.

The campaign was organised by the city’s Public Tranquillity Service of Bravvo (Tranquillité publique et Boulevards du Centre), a sort of ombudsman branch of the local government, liaising between local residents and businesses.

The move seems to coincide with a similarly aimed initiative in Belgium’s Antwerp, where authorities tried to implement a smart city measure to calm street noise in districts popular with students.

Give the people something to eat, something sweet

According to a report by the VRT, the actors were also handing out sweets to the people in the streets. This, a local official said, was inspired by a similar campaign in Bordeaux, France. The pieces of candy, allegedly, have engraved signs calling for silence. The reasoning also goes that people lower their speaking volume when they have something to eat, as the spokesmen claimed.

The actors will again roam the streets on 24-25 June, as well as on 2, 8, 9 and 16 July. Furthermore, they will do an ‘encore’ in August. According to a statement by the Tranquillity Service, the campaign aims to raise awareness that, although Brussels has a party district, people still live in the buildings above the restaurants and cafes.

Moreover, the district will be inundated by posters and t-shirts worn by restaurant staff, which thank the neighbours for enduring the weekend noise.