Among other things, the global coronavirus pandemic has significantly affected the festival industry in the world, almost all major music events have been canceled and postponed, the financial impact is strong and we will only see how it will recover from it in the coming period. Of course, this problem did not bypass even the largest and most important festival in the ex Yu area, repeatedly declared the best in Europe, Novi Sad's Exit. Since events like Exit are also important for the tourism offer of the economy, it also received a strong blow.
On the occasion of all the mentioned events, the organizers of Exit addressed the public with an open letter, which we transmit in its entirety:
"At the beginning of this open letter regarding the holding of the Exit festival, we first want to thank everyone for their patience. In the past period, we could not deal with the issue of holding the Exit, because since the introduction of the state of emergency, we stopped all activities on the promotion of the festival and focused all our efforts to socially beneficial actions, from the large volunteer campaign "Super Neighbor" that called for help to elderly fellow citizens to the special Exit TV program that in the past month made it easier for millions of people in the country and the world to stay in quarantine. Two songs were also recorded that call for volunteering, in which we gathered some of our favorite actors, musicians, athletes and other public figures.
At the beginning of the pandemic, we showed hope and optimism in our message to our fans, and as we all know, the situation changed from day to day and little could be predicted. With our unilateral moves, we did not want to cause an additional dose of panic in the citizens, which was not lacking in the previous period. As, according to predictions, the health situation has significantly improved and the state of emergency is ending, it is time to answer questions about holding the jubilee Exit festival.
For all of us at Exit, the health of our visitors, the citizens of Novi Sad and Serbia, as well as all the participants in the organization comes first. That is why we believe that the issue of changing the format and moving the date of the festival is not controversial, but for an official decision, coordination with the competent institutions at all levels is necessary. Exit is the most complex event in Southeast Europe and one of the biggest festivals in the world, so changing the format and date is a huge organizational undertaking. For the organization of this year's festival, hundreds of contracts were signed with performers, productions, hotels and other business entities from the country and the world. In order to terminate these contracts, among other things, it is necessary to fulfill the condition of force majeure, which will be valid under the laws of any European or world country. This is the reason why the other largest European festivals such as Tomorrowland, Sziget and many others, in accordance with the recommendation of the umbrella European festival association Yourope, have announced the date shift only after their countries passed measures banning mass gatherings for that period of the year, as well as economic and legal measures that protect their festivals from being shut down. The latter is contained in the appeal that "Europe" recently addressed to the Government of the Republic of Serbia.
In the past few weeks, we have repeatedly requested meetings with the competent institutions where we would find the best and least harmful solutions together, which we consider to be the only correct approach considering the complexity and importance of the situation in which we all found ourselves. We also wanted to understand how the opening of the country will go, and how to make the manifestations as safe as possible when they are finally allowed. We hope that now that the state of emergency has ended, those meetings will soon take place so that we can inform the audience from all over the world about the decisions that will be made together, as well as the hundreds of performers and several thousand people who participate in the organization of the festival.
Events in the country and around the world are the part of the economy that is most affected by the pandemic. The events were the first to be canceled and will be the last to return. We can't even estimate the losses yet, but they are in the millions of euros and are certainly the biggest since we existed and threaten to shut down not only Exit and other events, but also to leave thousands of families without a source of income. According to the estimates of the Serbian Chamber of Commerce, this sector of the domestic economy generates over 10.000 permanent and tens of thousands of part-time jobs. The total economic contribution of events to the Serbian economy is enormous, and Exit alone has brought over 200 million euros to our tourism economy so far.
We sincerely hope that the whole country, and with it Exit, as well as other important manifestations such as Guča, Beer Fest, Nishvil, Lovefest, Arsenal and numerous others, as well as the entire tourism economy and the entire cultural sector, will still get back on their feet. and continue with the work as soon as possible, because it is in the interest of everyone in the country. Maybe someone who works in other sectors of the economy doesn't think so today, but when one part of society weakens economically, then the economic power of the whole society falls as a result. The German government did not first help the worst affected manifestations because the Germans are a people who like to play and have fun, but because they understand this very principle that a hole should be patched regardless of where it was created so that the whole ship does not sink. That's why Exit in 2014 managed to collect, outside Serbia, over 200 thousand euros in aid for flood victims, even though neither the festival nor the fortress were flooded.
Manifestations were and remain one of the engines of tourism development in Serbia, which has developed greatly in recent years and was one of the drivers of our economy, and it can once again be the engine that will recover it. We just need to recognize our chance again in the global framework and together find a way out of the pandemic before everyone else," the organizers said in a statement.
At the end of last year, Exit Festival was also among the top ten in the "Best Big Festival" category at the European Festival Awards, the most important festival competition on the planet.
Before the coronavirus pandemic spoiled the plans of festivals around the world, Exit announced as this year's guests the American hit rapper Sheck Wes, the British indie rock Metronomi, the punk icon and Grammy Lifetime Achievement winner Marki Ramon, the cult New York hardcore group Agnostic Front, the Belgrade supergroup Minilinija , DJs including David Guetta, Tyga, Fatboy Slim, Boris Brejča and many others.
Bonus video:
