Beatles Museum Alkmaar

The Beatles Museum Alkmaar is a private museum at Pettemerstraat 12A in Alkmaar, in the Dutch province of North Holland, a short walk from the railway station. Collector Azing Moltmaker opened it on 6 June 1981 in Krommenie. It moved to Alkmaar in 1995, and it is one of the largest Beatles museums anywhere.

A fan club that became a museum

The museum began with a rejection. In 1977 Azing Moltmaker offered to help a Beatles fan club in Nieuwegein, and they turned him down. On 6 June 1978 he started his own club, Beatles Fan Records, whose first newsletters were photocopied sheets. In 1980 he opened a Beatles shop in Krommenie.

A year later, on 6 June 1981, he opened the museum there in a room of 40 square metres. Tom Mulder, a DJ on Radio Veronica, did the opening. The date matters to the museum's claim to be the first Beatles museum in the world. The Beatles Museum in Halle makes a rival claim to be the oldest, counting from a collection begun in 1964, though its first permanent museum only opened in Cologne in 1989.

Eight addresses in Alkmaar

After a short stay in Zaandam and a return to Krommenie, the museum moved to Alkmaar in 1995. Its first address was on De Laat, then Kanaalkade, and it has had eight locations in the city in all. On 29 November 2014 it reopened in a space of about 1,540 square metres on Noorderkade. Three mayors opened it: Piet Bruinooge of Alkmaar, Rob van der Riet of Drechterland and Jan Broekhuis of Hillegom. The Beatles had played in both of the last two towns in the 1960s. That day Moltmaker received Alkmaar's gold badge of honour.

On 4 June 2016 the museum reopened at Pettemerstraat 12a on a ten-year lease. It started there with 1,200 square metres. An expansion later joined numbers 12 and 12A, and the museum now gives its size as more than 1,800 square metres.

Objects from the Blokker concert

The Beatles' first concert in the Netherlands took place on 6 June 1964 in Blokker, in Drechterland, and the museum holds clothing and props the band used that day. Blokker now has its own Beatles monument. The collection also includes instruments and a large section on John Lennon. Moltmaker has written 61 hardcover books on the band, many of them also published in English.

Where the Elvis museum went

In December 2021 the museum took over the collection of the Elvis Presley Museum from Culemborg and showed it in the same building. By April 2025 the Beatles collection needed the room. Moltmaker announced that the Elvis section would close at the end of May 2025 and the Beatles museum would expand into its space from June. The new panels would be in Dutch, English and German, since German visitors make up almost a third of the museum's visitors.

The building still has two smaller museums. The Zeezender Museum shows model pirate radio ships built by Hans Hettelder, and the other covers old radios, record players, televisions and cameras. The 15-euro ticket covers all three, but the Dutch Museumjaarkaart is not accepted. Hours shorten in autumn: from 1 October the museum also closes on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. Groups of four or more can book a guided tour.