Features
Croatia’s Ultra Fest
In a year when there’s been much talk of the Croatian festival market being overcrowded, a U.S.-born event has moved in and smashed the country’s attendance record by doing nearly 35,000 per day.
Photo: Courtesy Insomniac
Ultra Music Festival, a brand that started in Miami in 1999 and has since gone global, did 103,000 across three days on its Croatian debut July 12-14.
The organizers are claiming it’s the biggest festival to have taken place on Croatian soil.
Ultra is one of a number of events in the Balkan region where (usually) English entrepreneurs take advantage of local costs to produce an event that can be packaged as a cheap holiday.
The visitors to Ultra Europe’s Croatian debut, which took place at the Poljud Stadium in Split and on Hvar Island, just off the Adriatic coast, came from 75 countries.
The acts helping to break records in Croatia July 12-14 included Armin van Buuren, Carl Cox, Avicii, Steve Aoki, Knife Party and Porter Robinson.