Festivals on steroids

Is it just me or the festivals in Serbia are getting seriously big last couple of years? You can read it in the papers – every year a new ‘people who were there’ record is broken and every year it feels like it’s getting crazier and wilder? Let’s start from the beggining.

1. Exit 2007 – 12th to 15th of July
With about fifty thousand people visiting each day, this years Exit gave a hint that this is as close as it gets to selling all the tickets and saying “We are sold out”. That and the fact that nearly ten thousand of those were visitors from abroad, mostly from Britain, gave Exit a strongest festival atmosphere so far, with the greatest number of drunken, dirty and happy people per square meter ever. I am bracing myself for the next year, because of the word of mouth effect that will happen when all those foreigners explain to their friends and relatives how much fun they had and how cheap the beer was. Everybody’s Youtube videos=, flickr photos are also an important testimony of this years event.

2. Guca 2007 – 08.08 to 12.08.
This years Guca had an injection of fresh foreign blood as well, but being that it’s free to attend it’s always a bit to tricky to know the exact number of people present, both locals and foreign. I believe that half a million people might be a right judgement, 50 thousand of those had to show their passports at Serbian border first. This year’s Goocha, much like last years, was spoiled by the presence of the politicians, both local in form of Tadic, Ilic and Kostunica and foreign, in shape of Dodik. As if them being there wasn’t enough, some of them had to speak to the masses as well, and it seems that Dodik got the paper with Kostunicas last years speech, interesting. Goran Bregovic concert also contributed to the increased number of people this year I believe. Brega showed everybody again why he is being called ‘a businessman’ in the musical industry instead of. say, ‘a musician’ – he hardly played or sung anything at the concert (than again, maybe this is not such a bad thing) – instead he was just sitting at the stage controling that all the other musicians are doing what he tells them.
People’s Youtube videos= and flickr pictures are here too.

3. Belgrade beer fest 2007, 15-19. August
Same problem like with Guca, difficult to determine the exact number of visitors, but I would say around 50 thousand people attended each night, so it’s about quarter of a million men, women and children all together drinking beer available to all ages, no questions asked. An amateur analysis I tried to conduct by simply observing tells me that the children under the age of 13 really are the worst drinkers and that maybe they shouldn’t be allowed to drink as much as they want. Maybe someone at some future beer fest will think of this issue.

Not a lot of Youtube videos= and flickr pics from Beer fest yet, but I’m sure there will be soon.

Unfortunately this year’s beer fest will be remembered also by the accident that happened when one young man under the influence of alcohol and marijuana fell or jumped into a bear cage in a nearby Belgrade Zoo. He was found dead tomorrow morning due to the wounds bear inflicted upon him. There is a lot of talk about this in medias and fingers pointing, blame for his death being tossed from city administration to Belgrade Zoo to Beer fest like a hot potato. It seems after all that it wasn’t anyone’s fault but his own, but the case is yet to be closed.

Festivals yet to come: Tuborg green beat tomorrow and Jelen pivo Live in September.

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Tagged as: exit fest, festival, guca