Before I get into my festival break down I have to say, as far as musical festivals go Exit is it, the crème de la crème, the show stopper, the shit, the bomb diggy. This was by far my favorite music festival that I went to in Europe. It has been voted the number one festival in Eastern Europe a few years in a row. I had such a good time last year that I am trying to get back to Europe this summer for a couple weeks specifically to hit this festival up again. This year (2009) happens to be the 10^th year anniversary. I will go into more detail about this years event later on.    

  

Firstly Let me give you a quick history of Exit, because it has a lot more significance then just being a four day party. The EXIT festival came into being in the year 2000 as an act of rebellion against the regime of Slobodan Miloševic, that had for years been keeping Serbia out of touch with the outside world. That summer thousands of young people from Novi Sad gathered in the campus park by the Danube River where concerts, parties and art performances took place.  There were also discussions and debates where the young were able to express their opposition to the imposed nationalism, xenophobia, censorship and repression. The event lasted for 100 days and its grand finale was the 'Get out to Vote' party, which was held one day before the elections that saw the downfall of Miloševic.

Having been inspired by the enthusiasm brought on by the changes in the country, the team behind EXIT decided to continue with the festival and create an event of true regional importance.  They chose the historic Petrovaradin Fortress as their venue, built high on the banks of the River Danube and offering a stunning view of Novi Sad. The site was originally occupied by the Romans, and re-built by the Austro Hungarian Empire as defense against the Turks in the 17th Century. 

Although very few people believed the idea would be a success, the first event held in July 2001 was visited by 200,000 people from all over Serbia and neighboring ex-Yugoslav countries. Every year since the number of attendees continues to grow. 

Now that you have some background knowledge about the festival here is my experience for Exit 08. After a few days at Running Of The Bulls in Pamplona, Spain, I hopped on a flight out to Budapest, Hungary. You might ask why I would fly to Budapest in Hungary rather than into Belgrade (Serbia’s capital city which is only 1 hour from Novi Sad).  Mainly because it is a lot cheaper to fly into Budapest, it’s only a couple hour bus ride from Budapest to Novi Sad, and Exit Fest offered a Bus service for an extra $20 or something. Anyways I arrived in Novi Sad on the Wednesday (Exit Fest runs from Thursday until Sunday).

Wednesday night and Monday morning are free pre and post Exit parties, which take place on the beach and have a huge sound system set up with dj’s. These parties are somewhat like a warm up and cool down for and from the real madness of Exit.

The one great thing about Exit is its diversity. It is not solely an electronic music festival. There are over different areas with different sorts of music ranging from house to hip hop to rock to reggae etc. So there is something for everyone.



As I mentioned the festival is spread out over 4 days ,Thursday-Sunday running each night from about 7pm until 7am (the last day runs until about 9 or 10am). So it’s important to pace your self. Someone once told me, “You can be in the clouds for days, or to the moon for a couple of hours”, take this how you want to, the point is pace yourself, you don’t want to burn yourself out on your first night there.

Exit 08’s line up was absolutely incredible no matter what genre of music you like, there was something for everyone. The headliners included; 2 Many DJs, Audion Live, Axwell, Ben Watt, Booka Shade Live, Dubfire (Deep Dish) & Sharam (Deep Dish), Francois K, Gossip, Gogol Bordello, Juliette and the Licks, Laurent Garnier, Marko Nastic, Manu Chao Radio Bemba Sound System, Ministry, N*E*R*D, Nightwish, Noisia, Paul Weller, Pekinška patka, Primal Scream, Roni Size Reprazent, Sex Pistols, Soulwax Live, Sven Vath, The Bell Rays, The Hives, Kruder and Dorfmeister, The Streets, Tiga.

As you can see, absolutely stacked line up with good representation in all genres with an obvious emphasis on Electronic music. The highlight for me was a toss up between Booka Shade and Dubfire. Both performed on the closing night and absolutely destroyed it. Booka Shade performed a live set (not just dj’ing but actually playing instruments and creating the music live).







Just after releasing a new album that summer N*E*R*D also through down an awesome performance with a live band to back him up. The only complaint I had about his performance was he only played material from his new album, so you didn’t get to hear any of his old stuff.

The festival was very diverse with people from all over Europe attending as well as Canada, the States, Australia and others to name a few. There was a huge population of Britts at the festival. Exit Festival actually started limiting the number of tickets sold in Britain last year because they didn’t want it to get taken over by British people. Needless to say the vibe was amazing the whole weekend.

A 4-day pass will run you 72 pounds = about $140 CND, which you can purchase online here http://www.etickets.to/buy/?e=1499 .  If you want to camp add on another 14 pounds. Camping can be fun but it can also be very hot in mid July. I recommend renting a place or hotel. It’s fairly cheap and will be a lot more comfortable.  

This years line-up is absolutely, disgustingly, ridiculously, out-of-this-world-good. They keep adding new names to the line-up right until a week or two before the festival, but as it stands, here are the current acts listed on the line-up;

Main Stage:

The Prodigy

Arctic Monkeys

Lily Allen

Moby

Korn

Manic Street Preachers

Kraftwerk

Madness

Patti Smith

After 2am (main stage hosts Drum & Bass and Jungle);

Fabio & Grooverider & MC Rage

DJ Marky & MC Dynamite

Andy C & MC GQ

Bryan Gee & Kenny Ken & MC Skibadee

Chase & Status

Caspa & Rusko & MC Rod Azlan

Sub Focus & MC Jakes

Dance Arena: Celebrating a Decade of Dance! With exclusive b2b sets from;

Carl Cox vs Green Velvet

Sasha vs Digweed

Richie Hawtin vs Dubfire

Eric Prydz vs Adam Beyer

Sander Kleinenberg vs Darren Emerson

Steve Lawler vs Lee Burridge

Steve Angello vs Sebastian Ingrosso

Kissy Sell Out vs Alex Metric

Paul Woolford vs Yousef

Heidi vs Justin Martin

Live performance by;

Etienne De Crecy

Gui Boratto

Reboot

With more to be announced.

Need I say more?? In addition to this amazing festival, I must point out that Serbia also offers two other outstanding things; absolutely drop dead gorgeous women  and an amazing traditional food called Cevapi (pronounced Chevapi).



Also if you have some time, go check out Belgrade after the festival is over. It’s only an hour long bus ride and there is some great night life there. They have all these floating nightclubs on the river called splavs. Lots of fun. Things are fairly cheap in Serbia as well, so your Canadian dollar will go a lot further there. Serbian money is called Dinar. 1 CND = about 60 Dinar’s.

 I am so excited for Exit this year and I’m going to do everything in my power to make it out. If you need more info feel free to shoot me a message on facebook Aaron Neilson-Belman or check out www.Exitfest.org . 

Aaron

“Getting down to business, so you can get to the business of getting down”