He builds up the stage just as easily as he edits videos, flies his father around the world as a pilot, but also operates the forklift. Pierre Rieu is the support and mainstay of his famous father, who starts his annual series of Christmas concerts at the MECC in Maastricht this weekend. (13 -15 Dec 2024) His initiation comes in 2008. A young Pierre Rieu has dropped out of law school to play an active role in the Johann Strauss Orchestra and to take work off his father André's hands. He has conceived the unholy plan to make a world tour with a copied Schönbrunn Castle, the famous Viennese palace of Empress Sisi and Emperor Franz Joseph. The structure is 125 meters wide and 34 meters high. It is a gigantic logistical operation. The premiere is in Toronto, Canada in 2007. But that's where it goes wrong. Half an hour before the performance, the power goes out. Pierre had then already worked through the night to finish the decor. "I almost had a heart attack. We barely made it." It almost killed him, Pierre Rieu says later… Golden helmet Frank Steijns, violinist in the Johan Strauss Orchestra, still remembers it well. "He walked around with a golden helmet on. Everyone had to wear a helmet, but because many people asked who Pierre was, he decided to spray his gold. So that they would recognize him. That's him all over: always creative in looking for solutions." There is not much that Pierre cannot do, says Steijns. He builds up the stage just as easily as when he edits videos, flies his father as a pilot around the world, but also operates the forklift. "He does it all very well and is always there for others." At this moment he is busy organizing André's Christmas concert series, which start this weekend at the MECC in Maastricht. They are no longer inferior to the Vrijthof concerts. The twelve concerts last summer were attended by some 88,000 spectators, not counting the terraces. The MECC can accommodate 12,500 people. The six concerts together account for 75,000 visitors. And now again it is big, bigger, biggest. With four hundred brass players and 170 dance couples from all over the country. “He has taken a lot of work off André Rieu's hands, who used to do everything himself, wanted to be in control of everything and was bad at delegating. I think he is very happy that his son has taken on that role, someone who is very close to him,” says Tim Geurts, author of the book '75 years of André Rieu, the story of the maestro' (click HERE). As business director, Pierre is involved in everything, except the music. Although… he does very seldom. Like in 2017 when, in the preamble of an American tour, an album was in the making in which the emphasis was on the waltz as a dance. So not like the elegance "An der schönen blauen Donau," but the straight forward three-quarter time. "We were already very far along with that record, when Pierre said: "Don't do it, dad. That's not you musically." André: “I needed that. Within a minute, that CD was in the trash," the violinist told the Algemeen Dagblad (Dutch newspaper). Together with father André and mother Marjorie, Pierre forms a trinity. André is the figurehead, Marjorie the silent force in the background and Pierre is the one who arranges everything behind the scenes. “Of course we sometimes have a difference of opinion, but in order to stay in music, we resolve them in harmony”, he says about the relationship with his parents. Pierre leaves his mark on the family business in his own way. Years ago, for example, he founded the so-called Travel branch, which offers complete accommodation packages around Rieu's concerts, mainly in Maastricht, but also on tours abroad. “What stuck with me is that he already said that he wanted to travel the world with his father”, says Jane Kappers, former teacher. Jane Kappers has known Pierre for a long time. She was an English teacher and vice-principal at the former Jeanne d'Arc college in Maastricht and is currently secretary of the Maastricht Future Music Foundation, of which Pierre Rieu is chairman. "He finds it very important that children who may not come into contact with music so quickly can enjoy it. He is well aware that not everyone is afforded the same opportunities in life and also wants to offer them optimal opportunities," says Kappers. Travelling around. She remembers him as a student. "That was a long time ago. But what stuck with me is that back then he had already said that he wanted to travel the world with his father. And even back then he was particularly interested in the Second World War. At the age of sixteen he was already a guide at Fort Eben Emael and was already talking about setting up his own museum." The interest in the war years stems from his family history. His maternal grandmother was married to a German Jew. She was also in the resistance.