Not the Grote Markt but the Old Town Hall, and not the Coolsingel but the Fishermen's Monument: Monopoly Urk is full of Urk landmarks. Brothers Jelle and Lucas Hakvoort recently started selling the special Monopoly variant.
A Christmas package they received in Den Bosch gave the two brothers the idea: it contained a Monopoly edition specifically for that city. Lelystad, Almere, and Dronten also have their own Monopoly game. "Urk should have this too," they thought.
Urk has plenty of iconic places, so choosing which ones should be on the board wasn't that difficult. "But it was more difficult to decide where on the board they should go." The streets are ranked, after all: from dirt cheap (Dorpsstraat) to super expensive (Kalverstraat).
'Unique that we're on it'
The Urk Beach Pavilion ultimately became the cheapest spot. "Not because we value it less, but because the brown category on the Monopoly board represents the catering businesses for us."
At that pavilion, employee Fieke shrugs off the cheap position: "I think it's unique that we're on a Monopoly board at all, so it doesn't really matter."
The Urk Kalverstraat? That became the lighthouse. "That wasn't a difficult choice," says Jelle. "That is, of course, the main characteristic of Urk."
It's not cheap to make your own Monopoly game: with the money needed to buy the rights, the brothers said they could have bought a very nice car.
But with sponsorship deals and game sales, they can easily recoup that investment. Especially for Christmas packages, companies are now buying the game 'en masse'. "That means we've already sold a large part of the stock," says Lucas.
Mayor Bart Jaspers Faijer received the first copy of the game on Wednesday afternoon. He claims not to be competitive, but he has fond memories of playing the game during the Christmas holidays. "Being able to translate the pride of your village into such a game, I think that's beautiful."
Source: Omroep Flevoland