Photo Credit: Nikola Rakic
EXIT Festival is pulling out of Serbia, as organizers blame “undemocratic” issues. The 25th anniversary edition will be the last to take place there.
EXIT Festival, one of Europe’s largest music festivals, born 25 years ago as a student movement for peace and freedom in Serbia and the Balkans, is exiting Serbia. The festival will hold its 25th anniversary edition in the country from July 10 through 13, but it will be the last to take place there.
According to organizers, Serbian authorities have cut off government funding for the event, while some sponsors have been “forced to withdraw under state pressure.” This, organizers say, relates to the festival’s support for an ongoing student-led anti-corruption protest movement in the country. However, provincial officials reject these allegations, instead blaming financial pressures, leading to an inability to provide support.
“This is the hardest decision in our 25-year history, but we believe that freedom has no price,” said Dušan Kovačević, founder and director of the EXIT festival group. “With this act, we are defending not only EXIT, but the fundamental right to free expression for all cultural actors around the world. We invite them to stand with us in this fight.”
Last year, held at Petrovaradin Fortress in Serbia’s second city, Novi Sad, the festival attracted 200,000 visitors. But following a disaster last November at Novi Sad railway station, in which 16 people died when a concrete canopy collapsed, students launched protests.
The festival offered support to those protesting. This ranged from joining students on protest marches to providing food, sleeping bags, and other necessities, as well as posting messages of support on social media.
“Ever since we publicly stood with the students of Serbia in their fight for a freer and more just society, we have been subjected to immense financial and political pressures aimed at stripping us of our fundamental rights to freedom of thought and expression,” reads a statement from festival organizers. “Despite being completely cut off from public funding at all levels of government, and with some sponsors forced to withdraw under state pressure, we refuse to be silenced.”
EXIT is firmly rooted in the pro-democracy protest movement that eventually led to the defeat of Slobodan Milosevic in Yugoslavia’s presidential elections in 2000. This activist tradition has continued, with each year given a theme; one year’s theme was “Stop Human Trafficking,” while another was “Loud and Queer.”
“EXIT 2025 will take place from July 10-13 in Novi Sad, when together with students we will mark 25 years of fighting for the better world,” said festival organizers. “EXIT is not just a festival—EXIT is all of us who believe we can make a change. […] If this is truly the last EXIT at the Fortress, let it be unforgettable. Let it be our strongest yet—a festival remembered not for its end, but for its unity.”
Content shared from www.digitalmusicnews.com.