Bulgaria Suffers Heavy Traffic

Martin Stoyanov believes his Kaliakra Festival crowd was down because the market can’t handle the large number of rock acts visiting Bulgaria.

The heavy traffic not only includes his own July 5-7 headliners Manowar, Alice Cooper and Slayer, but also Metallica – which has sold 42,000 tickets – KISS, Whitesnake and Def Leppard.

"They’re all happening within a month of each other," Stoyanov explained after his three-day event at Kaliakra Stadium in Kavama sold 23,000 tickets.

Although he needs 30,000 for the festival to break even on gate money, he says it has sufficient sponsorship to cover this year’s shortfall.

This is the third year the event has been held and, despite the poor attendance, Stoyanov is confident it will still be around in 2009.