Exit Unlucky With Numbers

Given that it was the 13th edition of the event and it started on Friday the 13th, it was on the cards that Serbia’s Exit Festival would be unlucky with numbers.

Daily crowds averaging 36,000 is hardly a disaster for a country in an economic crisis, but organisers would obviously have been happier to get closer to the 50,000-per-day, capacity sellout Exit achieved at its 10th anniversary bash in 2009.

The following year, festival press chief Rajko Bozic blamed the economic doldrums in Serbia and the neighbouring Balkan states when the turnout dropped 15 percent to 170,000.

This year’s four-day crowd of about 150,000, which was made up of music fans from 40 countries, also suggests the festival on the old fortress site at Novi Sad may have become victim of its earlier popularity.

Many of the younger fans who visit festivals in other countries, particularly those in the old Eastern Bloc, tend to switch their destinations from year to year in search of cheap beer in new surroundings.

The shift in fashion is illustrated by the fact that Exit was the first festival in the former Soviet regions to win Virtual Festival’s Best European Festival Award, although it was quickly followed by Poland’s Heineken Open’er and Sziget Festival in Hungary.

Despite not matching the crowd figures of recent years, the event itself was well up to Exit’s high standards. The fact that so much of the crowd came from outside Serbia suggests the figures are a temporary blip that will get ironed out as soon as fashion and the Balkan economy allow.

The acts helping Exit battle the numerical omens July 12-15 included Guns N’ Roses, Duran Duran, New Order and Gossip.