Kosovo Clubbing

Written by: Saranda Vraniqi Exit , now world-renowned, held its 24th festival this year.   This article won't cover who performed or how many awards the festival has garnered so far. You can find all that on Exit's official website.  Instead, I'll try to paint a picture of one evening/night at the festival from my perspective —how the eyes, soul, and other senses of a long-time clubber (and journalist) experienced one of my favorite festivals. To better understand why you might consider my opinion on the festival, I'll share a bit about myself. I'm 45 years old and have been a clubber since I was two. It sounds surreal, but it's my truth . My love for music and dancing started on my dad's lap as he bounced me to the rhythm of the music. My dad, who deserves his own novel (which I won't write now), took me with him to discos and cafes like a little sidekick. By the age of four, people recognized me on the street as the "little girl from the disco....

The recent EXIT Festival resonated with the biggest hits and a buzz of diverse languages from over 200,000 people gathered from 120 countries.  Guests from Kosovo, Turkey, Slovenia, Germany, France, the Netherlands, Hungary, the UK, Austria, Australia, New Zealand, Chile, and many other countries converged in Novi Sad for a grand celebration of music, love, and freedom from July 6th to 9th at the enchanting Petrovaradin Fortress, which, besides the fantastic lineup, stood out as the festival's highlight.  Visitors left the Fortress this year feeling happy, excited, and filled with memories from these four unforgettable days.  "It's so amazing,"  "The festival is fantastic,"  "We loved a hundred things about it,"  "The festival exceeded all my expectations and more" – these are just a few of the impressions shared by Exitors :)  Though each festival experience was unique, they all united in the desire to return to EXIT next year and eve...

EXIT Festival 2023 shines a light on vital issues, promoting mental health and ecological consciousness. With a mission to create a better world together, the festival organized multiple opening ceremonies focused on spreading messages of peace and love.  Throughout the event, festival-goers experienced designated phone-free zones, recycling initiatives, and inspiring messages highlighting mental well-being.  In a powerful move, EXIT Foundation launched the "Life Is Live" campaign, raising awareness about the importance of young people's mental health and addressing digital addiction.  The festival's eco-conscious e fforts included large-scale recycling campaigns, collecting three times more packaging than in previous years. Visitors participated in green activities, earning prizes for their responsible waste disposal. In addition to promoting peace and unity, EXIT bestowed every visitor with the title of "peaceful traveler."  Messages emphasizing mental...

Every Visitor to the Petrovaradin Fortress is a Peaceful Traveller!  The collaboration between the EXIT Festival and the Institute for Peace Through Tourism marks an inspiring initiative to promote peace and unity among festival visitors. This joint mission has resulted in an agreement that grants every visitor to this year's festival the esteemed title of "peaceful traveller." This designation reflects the values of gratitude, tolerance , and appreciation of diversity that define peaceful travellers.  One of the noteworthy aspects of this collaboration is the distribution of the credo of the International Institute for Peace Through Tourism to all EXIT lovers. This credo encapsulates the principles that characterize a peaceful traveller, emphasizing the individual's commitment to journey with an open mind, accept diversity with grace and gratitude , and protect the natural environment. By embracing these principles, peaceful travellers foster an atmosphere of f...

 The global myth surrounding EXIT festival was largely built around the extremely careful selection of the electronic music program, thanks to which many epic acts performed at Petrovaradin Fortress. This year’s entire electronic music program has just been presented, with which EXIT has decided to encapsulate the previous two decades and provide visitors with the genre’s most diverse sound, unique live performances, an appreciation of female creativity, premiere performances, as well as a combination of legends, the hottest international artists, and up-and-coming talent. The lineups of the stages dedicated to the highest-quality techno, house, tech-house, drum’n’bass, and trance sound , including Urban Bug, X-bass, IQOS Together X. House, Gaia Trance, and AS FM, have also been revealed. From July 6 to 9, global, regional, and local performers will present the finest of electronic music on these eight stages, led by mts Dance Arena, the unofficial global temple of this sound! A c...

Another EXIT Dance Arena Belgrade Takeover :) Boris Brejcha Returns in Exclusive “In Concert” Tour! After Paul Kalkbrenner’s spectacular performance in the Belgrade Arena, EXIT has announced the return of another local audience favorite – Boris Brejcha. Brejcha will arrive at the Main Hangar of the Port of Belgrade on November 10 as part of the exclusive “In Concert” tour. Serbia’s capital is again on his map, along with London, Berlin, Paris, and other metropolises. Brejcha is accompanied by representatives of his prestigious label Fckng Serious – talented producers Deniz Bull and Moritz Hofbauer.  Boris Brejcha has made a significant contribution to the music program of mts Dance Arena with his performances so far. He stated in a previous interview that he “always enjoys performing at EXIT, especially at dawn. Over time, Boris Brejcha has developed his own style – “high tech minimal” techno – as a separate genre, sometimes referred to as the “intelligent music of tomorrow.”...

After receiving an award for Best Innovation at the U.K Festival Awards, EXIT has entered into a multi-year collaboration with ticketing platform NFT-TiX for its upcoming festivals and events. EXIT, a multiple Best European Festival Award winner, became the first major music event in the world to use blockchain technology to sell NFT tickets for an event of this size, enabling the purchase of tickets on a decentralised ticketing platform.  It was this project that won the U.K Festival Innovation Award mentioned earlier and it has now been shortlisted for the DISRUPTOR Award at the Ticketing Business Awards, one of the most prestigious global awards in ticketing business industry.  The collaboration with NFT-TiX will include a series of events organised by the EXIT team, with a special offer for the upcoming EXIT Festival, which will take place from the 6th to the 9th of July 2023 at the Petrovaradin Fortress in Novi Sad.  In addition to NFT tickets, EXIT was the first...

UK platform Savoo conducted research to answer the question of which festivals offer the best value for money. Out of the 12 most popular European festivals, EXIT came in second place. According to research by Savoo, considering the headliners of this year’s EXIT Festival, including Wu-Tang Clan, The Prodigy, Skrillex, Dimitri Vegas & Like Mike, Eric Prydz, and many others, as well as the prices of festival tickets compared to tickets for their individual concerts, EXIT offers visitors from abroad the opportunity to hear their favorite global stars at a discount of €350!  By comparing the prices of festival tickets with the biggest festival headliners’ average solo concert ticket prices, the British platform Savoo researched the most famous music festivals in the UK and Europe to find out how much visitors can save by visiting each of them.  EXIT took a high second place on the list of European festivals, with the most affordable ticket price in relation to the quality o...

Belgrade was conquered by the EXIT Dance Arena event, which officially launched EXIT's festival season.  The main Hangar of the Port of Belgrade was packed with more than 5,000 people who danced to the sophisticated tech house sound of Hot Since 82.  The event was a perfect prelude to one of the strongest editions of mts Dance Arena, featuring renowned artists such as Eric Prydz, Nina Kraviz, Amelie Lens, Indira Paganotto, Keinemusik, Michael Bibi, CamelPhat, and many others.  The evening was opened by last year's Let's Mix It competition winner Dakman, and the music project IDQ performed their hybrid DJ set, premiering unreleased tracks from their long-awaited album "Borderline."  The EXIT Dance Arena event in Belgrade was a massive success, and the upcoming mts Dance Arena is set to be one of the most exciting editions yet. [source] 

Amsterdam Dance Event opened its doors for the 27th edition . More than 1,000 events attract over 400,000 visitors to the Dutch capital by the end of the weekend.   Amsterdam is hosting more than 2,500 DJs, producers, promoters, and all other people from the world of electronic music for the next few days. Among them, there are several representatives of t he regional scene who will present our climate to a wider world audience. Popular party organizers BSH Events bring a touch of the Croatian scene to the Netherlands with a free twelve-hour afterparty. Ani, Aldo Morro, Bronski, Damir Pushkar, Elena Mikac, Gabi b2b Lovre, Pablo Panda, Marcel, Tom Bug, Toni Kostijal and many others will take over the BarFly in Amsterdam from 7am to 5pm this Friday. EXIT Festival organizes its showcase again at the spectacular Faralda Crane Hotel. Layla Benitez, Eli Brown, Ilija Djokovic, Human Rias, Ece Ekren, Mija and a surprise guest lead the partygoers through an intimate and intense d...

EXIT’ s camp, the most popular festival accommodation in Novi Sad, will be located on Strand, the most beautiful sandy beach on the Danube, from 5th to 12th July. Socializing with festival fans from all over the world, sleeping in the open air, swimming all day, and feeling that the festival never stops are just some of the experiences that make the camp a favorite place for thousands of EXIT fans from all over the world.  Exactly two weeks before the beginning of the festival, other accommodation capacities in Novi Sad and its surroundings are being filled at high speed. According to official data, there is only 18% capacity left, which will be filled before the festival begins, so all those interested should hurry. The tens of thousands of young people from all over the world confirm how legendary the days and nights on the Strand are. In addition to the standard offer consisting of indoor hot water showers, toilets, and various foods and beverages, a shop with camping equipment,...

 After 18 months of no shows, Paul Kalkbrenner is running hot, releasing ‘Si Soy Fuego’ a brand new single and video fresh off headlining the renowned Exit Festival. Unveiling the Episode One dates of a brand new theatrical live concert tour in October , which will include screenings of a new director’s cut of the cult movie, Berlin Calling, in which Kalkbrenner starred.  ‘Si Soy Fuego’ is a percussive cut that Kalkbrenner centers around a Spanish language vocal that he discovered among “a pile of demo recordings”. It’s a buoyant message encapsulating Paul’s enthusiasm for live music’s return, a sentiment mirrored in the accompanying video, shot at this past weekend’s 20th-anniversary edition of Exit Festival in Serbia. [source] 

EXIT Festival and Visa are opening the Play at EXIT competition for the selection of four new author bands or performers who will perform on the Visa Fusion Stage , from July 8 to 11 , as a part of the big celebration of two decades of the Exit Festival in Novi Sad.   Bands and musicians can apply via the app on this link from June 5th to 15th.  After that, the selection team, composed of multi-year EXIT program managers, will select four names. All of them will have the opportunity to perform on the Visa Fusion Stage, the most influential festival stage in this area dedicated to regional performers.  The competition is open to musicians who perform their songs live, regardless of whether they have a publisher or not.  Through performances on this stage of rich history, EXIT and Visa encourage the work and development of new author bands.  It is necessary for all interested parties to send at least two of their songs available on one of the streaming servic...

 As part of the celebration of two decades of EXIT Festival, EXIT TV brings a special multi-hour program on New Year's Eve, which will include some of the biggest names of the festival, such as The Cure, The Prodigy, Migos, David Guetta, The Chainsmokers, Moby, Faithless, Motorhead, Jason Derulo, Atoms For Peace, Liam Gallagher, Damon Albarn, Hurts, Pet Shop Boys, Nile Rodgers, Fever Ray and many, many others. An eclectic mix  from Main Stage titled EXIT to 2021 will unite fans around the globe on the 31st of December in the best wishes for the New Year, which we all expect to be incomparably better than the previous one.  “Bearing in mind that the forthcoming holidays will be unique in the fact that the vast majority of people will spend them at home in very specific circumstances, we have decided to do what we do best — offer people an EXIT from the current situation, share with them some of the most important moments in EXIT Festival’s rich history and entertain them i...

On Thursday, September 24 at 20:20 EXIT will launche a new project InfinitX .  The first InfinitX livestream event is being realized together with  Charlotte de Witte within her New Form series and with the support of Beatport. The Belgian superstar recorded this special performance from the unique location of the Mogren Fortress in Budva . Charlotte’s performance will have an exceptional global promotional value, bearing in mind that with this project she is launching her new EP “Rave On Time”. It will be exclusively available to purchase on Beatport from the onset of the livestream and comes on her own label KNTXT which is also an influential party that has held special showcases round Europe. Again the EP showed a subtle evolution in her style as she laced dark , driving techno , acid and rave with her own mystic ambience and stylish sense of sound design. This new stream is a perfect chance to tune into one of the world’s foremost techno innovators while soaking u...