Tucked away behind brick castle walls, there lives a festival that goes from dusk til dawn. Diverse in music genres, rock enthusiasts and ravers alike flock to the festival for a good time and magical sunrises. Just a short ride from Belgrade, Novi Sad is a city that sits on the famous Danube River. With beaches, inexpensive food/lodging, and a killer lineup, Exit is an award-winning European music festival. Celebrating its 15th year in 2015, the festival presented its A-Game and for the first time in history, it sold out on the second day.

Exit Music Festival far exceeded my expectations. After having spent 3 days in this massive fortress, Exit is a recommendation high on my worldwide-festival list. The entire festival is held from 7pm – 8am inside of a stunning fortress. The venue feels somewhat like a labyrinth, and allows for interesting use of the grounds and, as I mentioned, unbeatable sunrises. Exit Music Festival has several stages, creative activities, and a wide variety of music acts.

Weather: The weather during the day in Serbia was hot (around 85 F/29 C), but cooled off during the evening.

Where to stay: The festival offers a few different options for lodging. Camping is available for those who wish to do so, but the camping is held on Strand beach, about a 15 minute walk from the fortress. The upside is that the camping is very inexpensive ($25USD) for the weekend and the camping area is blocked off to beach go-ers. Another plus is that there is a phone company on the campgrounds which sells unlimited data plans for under $3 per day, so that you’re able to use your phone in your tent. The beach is the place to be during the day for festival goers. If you aren’t camping on the beach, entrance to Strand will cost you about $5USD. The beach is packed with food vendors, bars, music and beautiful Serbian people. I opted out of camping on Strand once I realized that the festival grounds opened at 7pm. I wanted a comfortable place to sleep where I wouldn’t get too hot during the day. I was incredibly fortunate to find a spare bed in Varad Inn Hostel-Cafe. This hostel is incredibly clean, everything was brand new, the staff were some of the most friendly people I have ever met, and I met some of the best travelers here. Without question, I would book this hostel again when returning to this festival and/or Novi Sad. The hostel offers food and drinks (alcoholics as well), and there are food vendors surrounding the hostel. The hostel is a 15 minute walk from the beach and a one minute walk from the fortress.

Foam Party at Strand Beach

Capacity: The fortress can hold about 55,000 people per day.  There were several stages available to festival goers. They included the Main Stage, the Dance Arena, Fusion Stage, Explosive Stage, No Sleep Novi Sad Stage, Positive Vibration Reggae Stage, Experiment Trance Stage, Latino Stage, Urban Stage, ASFM Stage, Karaoke Stage and more. Due to the venue being so compartmentalized, the only time the venue felt crowded was in the Dance Arena. There is a long staircase to get down into the dance arena, and the same long staircase is needed to get back up. During popular acts, this area gets incredibly crowded, and it makes it difficult to move around and get in and out of that stage.

Crowd in the Dance Arena at Sunrise

Crowd at the Latin Stage, near the Chill Out Zone

Reggae Stage

Crowd: The crowd at this festival was interesting. I met people from all over the world from the hostel, but most of the festival goers in the crowd were Serbians. While incredibly friendly, I noticed that many Serbians did not dance as much as they do in other parts of the world. I’m not sure if this is part of the culture or not, but not much of the crowd was moving at all, and even my friends on Snapchat made comments about this without me saying anything. The crowd was pretty young overall, and I would say the average age ranged from about 16 – 25. While at many festivals I’ve been to the crowd likes to dress up, paint their face, and wear wigs, the Serbians kept the festival very laid back. Most people wore comfortable clothing and shoes, and there were not many costumes there.

Food: One of the downfalls to this festival was the food available inside the festival grounds. There were a couple of vendors scattered throughout the festival, but most of them were lined in a small strip between the main stage and the dance arena. Basic food was available such as pizza, burgers, fries and grilled corn. Prices for food were reasonable, so you could get a full meal for about $6-9. Alcoholic drinks were also available, but you needed to purchase a card, and load money on the card before you could buy a drink. This was not the same policy for food. Only beer and cider were available in the main areas, although VIP area bars had liquor available (with drinks priced around $6 a piece).

Insider Notes: The city of Novi Sad has great views, and sat right on the river. Strand Beach is a local hot spot, not just during the festival, but for the entire summer for the city. DJs can be found spinning, locals can be found dancing, and food is everywhere. The American Dollar against the Serbian denar is very strong, so it is very inexpensive to be in the city. I had some small meals for as little as 80 cents.The people of Serbia are some of the most naturally attractive people I have ever seen. The men are tall and strong, and the women are thin with beautiful eyes. Everyone I saw at the beach looked incredibly fit, as if they worked out all the time.

Things to Do:

One of the things I liked most about the festival was how creative they were with things to do besides watch music at the stages, have a drink and eat food.

• Sing Karaoke: The karaoke stage was located on a pathway and tucked in a little pocket in the fortress. There was a small stage for the performers and bean bags for anyone wishing to attend a small performance. This was the first time I had ever seen a karaoke stage at a festival, and I thought it was a great idea.
• Gaming Center: Sometimes its nice to just relax and kickback after several hours of dancing. The Gaming center allowed for just that. Equipped with large screens and projectors, festival goers could play some games with their friends before returning to the music.
• Trade a cigarette for a free massage: Clearly trying to attack nicotine use in Serbia, there was a company that was offering free massages for those who were willing to trade in a cigarette for it. Definitely a cool and creative way to fight tobacco.

What It Means to be VIP at this Festival:

Paying to be VIP at this festival includes:

• Immediate access into the festival
• Access to bars with hard alcohol
• Separate viewing areas at the Dance Arena (backstage) and Main Stage

What Makes this Festival Different:

• The Venue – The Fortress truly made the festival what it is. From the outside, the fortress looks fairly small, but upon entering, you realize how large it is. The fortress winds around, and it can take an evening to get acclimated with the grounds and figure out where all the stages are. There are rounded underpasses, slopes, and trees located in the fortress, really giving it an awesome feel.
  

  Through an underpass in the fortress

• The City – It feels like the entire city participates in the festival, because it does. Near the fortress there are vendors everywhere in the streets, selling everything from shots of alcohol to sunglasses to lights. During the day the party is moved to Strand Beach, and when the sun goes down the city gets ready to enter the fortress.
  

  The fortress from the city bridge

• On Stage Performers and Fireworks – Exit made sure to keep the crowd entertained at all times in the dance arena. After a while, watching a DJ rock back and forth and press buttons can be a little manotonis. Exit hires performers to come on stage, do poi performances, has dancers and also incorporates firework shows every night. I am not sure if this happens every year, or if this was special to celebrate its 15th anniversary.
  

  Performers on the Dance Arena stage

• Wifi Setup- Something I had never seen before at the festival was the use of a mobile provider for data for festival attendees. The festival would give you a free MTS sim card which would allow you to text any Serbian number, free of charge. If you were looking to use data at the festival, for just $17USD you could have 10 gigs of data for the entire time you were in the country. This was a great deal for those traveling outside of the country for the festival, and for people who like to upload pictures and videos to share with friends.
• Go down a slide – To take you from one stage to another, Exit offered a long slide, rather than walk. There was usually a line to do this, but it looked awesome.
  

  Slide to take you from one stage to the next

My rating: 8.5/10

Overall, this festival was great. Like I mentioned, what made it so special was the venue itself. The Serbians were friendly people, the lineup was diverse, and the venue was unlike anything I have ever seen. The city of Novi Sad was enjoyable to be in due to Strand Beach, the fact that the city was walkable, and it had a cute little downtown area to explore. In additon, the festival did a great job catering to people who were traveling to Serbia by providing them with the tools to communicate with friends and family. In order to make the festival better, I think the festival needs to diversify their food vendors, and find a way to make the flow of traffic going in/out of the dance arena more efficient. Additonally, their card/alcoholic drink system was a little messy. Preloaded cards were needed to get alcoholic beverages, but nothing else. Often times people would move up through the line just to find they were 50 cents shy of a beverage, thus slowing down the line. I think if preloaded cars are to be used, they should be used for everything, not just beverages.

Thanks for reading, and let me know if you have anything to add or have any questions!

XO Steph

Exit Crew 2015