EXIT (festival)
EXIT FESTIVAL
Location
Novi Sad, Serbia
Years
active
2000 - present
Founded
by
Dušan Kovačević and Bojan
Bošković
Date(s)
Four days, starting on the first
Thursday of July
Genre
Rock, Electronica, Dance, House/
Progressive, Techno/Minimal,
Metal, Hip hop, Punk
Website www.exitfest.org
EXIT (also known as State of EXIT) is an
annual summer music festival in the Petro-
varadin Fortress of Novi Sad, Serbia. It is
staged annually since 2000 and usually lasts
four days (since 2003).
Held in the picturesque setting of an
eighteenth century fortress by the Danube,
the festival quickly grew in stature and repu-
tation. From its grass roots political begin-
nings, over to occasional problems with fin-
ancing, and ending with wide praise it’s
lately receiving, EXIT tries to stick to its ini-
tial mission of providing relevant entertain-
ment to Serbian youth while also bringing
pertinent social topics to the forefront.
The festival was started in 2000 by three
University students from Novi Sad: Bojan
Bošković, Dušan Kovačević, and Ivan Milivo-
jev. In 2000 and 2001 the festival was organ-
ized through the Students’ Union of Faculty
of Technical Sciences and University of Novi
Sad. In the meantime several NGO’s and
commercial companies have been involved in
the organization. Since 2007, the festival has
been a subject of several official and unoffi-
cial takeover bids.
UK Festival Awards 2007, together with
Yourope, the European Association of the 40
largest festivals in Europe, awarded EXIT as
the Best European Festival. Public from all
over the world voted for about a month, and
among 10 festivals, EXIT won this award that
is being awarded for the first time in the cat-
egory of the Best European Festival.
History
EXIT 00
The inaugural installment of EXIT was held
over 100 days throughout the summer of
2000 on various stages set up between
University of Novi Sad’s Faculty of Philo-
sophy building and the Danube’s left bank.
Initially the festival had a pronounced politic-
al component, representing, in eff