EXIT Festival, known for supporting social change since the Serbian revolution in 2000, has sent the message of hope and unity in the first official event after the lockdown ended in Serbia. One of the biggest European festivals has joined forces with popular local actors and musicians to celebrate Victory Day but in a slightly different fashion than usual.
Several of country’s top internationally acclaimed DJs played for a crowd of just 50 people in a colossal Dance Arena moat at the Petrovaradin Fortress, an impressive 18th-century venue that during EXIT festival usually fits over 50.000 visitors each day.
The event was organized in cooperation with the national creative industries platform “Serbia Creates” and had the additional symbolism for the award-winning EXIT Festival and its team members. Two decades ago they had to exit from the oppressive regime of Slobodan Milosević and the era of civil wars in former Yugoslavia, and nowadays it’s unprecedented crisis caused by the pandemic.
Just two days before the event took place, the Serbian government officially ended the state of emergency entering into the reopening phase after several weeks of lockdown that included police curfews, some of which even lasted for 84 hours.
The reason for this invite-only event was not just to mark victory day and end of state of emergency, but to celebrate life in general, since all the attendees helped spread the message of hope and unity. Symbolically they created a big number 1 raising large banners with EXIT‘s core values such as love, unity, freedom and revolution and in the festival’s recognizable red and white logo. Inspiration for this aerial image came from the lyrics of the song “We Come 1” by the seminal British band Faithless who played one of the most remarkable concerts in EXIT history calling people all over the globe to unite.
“We gathered here at the EXIT’s magical home, the Petrovaradin Fortress, to send a message of hope and optimism to the whole world that we will win this battle united”, says the EXIT’s founder Dušan Kovačević, who also added: “The health crisis is slowly moving behind us, but there are still many obstacles such are the economic conse-quences“.
Check out the video below.
