One of the southernmost municipalities in Montenegro - Bar, with an increasing number of events dedicated to gaming, information technologies and robotics, is becoming the epicenter of innovation and community for fans of these industries. The city under Rumija is already recognized as a tourist destination, and now it gets a new face - the face of Gaming City, opening the door to the future of technology and entertainment.
The first Montenegro Future Festival, which took place in Bar in October 2023, was only the beginning of this process. The festival has become a platform that unites gaming, information technology and pop culture in a unique way, and with each subsequent edition it plans to grow and develop, attracting an increasing number of visitors from different parts of the world.
The focal point of this growing phenomenon, whose second edition is scheduled for mid-May, is the European Gaming Summit 2024, which will be held as part of this event from May 10 to 12. This event will bring together over 50 speakers from around the world who will discuss about 15 topics in panel discussions.
"Team TO Bar that make up Nikoleta Nikčević, Ilija Stojović i Jovana Nenezić he is trying to invest in a different way and in a much smarter way the funds that should be spent for the development of some new things. The agreement at the level of the Municipality of Bar, TO and all authorities is to try to position Bar on the map of IT technologies, new technologies in general, but also gaming, which is currently the most powerful industry. We are trying to position ourselves considering that there are not many municipalities that are interested in gaming events at the Balkan level. We have excellent cooperation with the president of the Electronic Sports Association Filip Šoć which has positioned itself well in international associations, because without the support of international associations, as well as COK, these things would not be possible", said the director of TO Bar at yesterday's working breakfast Danilo Orlandic and added that last year's first edition of the "Montenegro future festival" was a pilot project that gathered a lot of people, and proved to be a good introduction to the plans they have for positioning the Bar as a Gaming City.
"At the end of 2023, we all sat together and agreed with the representatives of the municipality that during this year we will have three or four events in Bar that will focus on gaming and new technologies. The first was in January. It is the "Global Game Jam". A few days before the "Montenegro future festival" in May, we would like to announce the robotics league that was previously held in Podgorica. With that team of people, we also want to make a story that will not be just a robotics league of primary and secondary schools. Bar will soon form a team that will be made up primarily of people from our city who are successful outside, who deal with programming, IT-technologies to help us in forming a strategy together with roboticists and SESCG. We are still trying to conceptualize in general what it should all look like", Orlandić added, and pointed out that at the municipal level they are already defining plots and buildings that could be used for the development of all these industries.
Šoć reminded the Association of Electronic Sports of Montenegro that the biggest names of this fastest-growing industry will be present at the Gaming Summit on those days in Bar.
"We will have panel discussions for three days. The first day, May 10 to be exact, is reserved for state institutions, while the 11th and 12th will feature speakers from all over the world. We already have about 120 people who have confirmed that they are coming to the summit, and I believe there will be about a hundred more who will come with them. We are talking about people who are not from Montenegro. In addition, as part of the IMF, we will have the "Adriatic" Cup in e-Football, a title with a prize fund of 5000, and participants from 15 countries are coming. The countries in question are Italy, Slovenia, Hungary, Bulgaria, Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Montenegro, Albania, North Macedonia, Greece, Spain, Portugal, Moldova and most likely Azerbaijan. This tournament will be the second part of the festival, and the third is the final part of the course of the American gaming organization NASEF, which is being completed by about 20 people from Montenegro, and after passing it, they will have their licenses for education. Thanks to these trainings, this organization is entering the territory of Europe for the first time, and we hope that our partner organization "For Future" in the European Gaming Federation will be in charge of education, and people from Montenegro will deal with education at the European level", he praised is Šoć. He pointed out that, among others, he will speak at the panel discussions Lance Mudd by the way, a former NFL player, who is currently headed by the Electronic Sports Federation of the USA, then the general secretary of the IESF Boban Totovski, Paul Foster the secretary of GEF, as well as the leaders of one of the biggest tournaments when it comes to CS2 - Blast.
"Blast is like Wimbledon in tennis, one of the biggest Counter-Strike tournaments. We would like to bring Blast to us in the future, but for that investment of 700-800 thousand we need the support of the state", explains Šoć, and Orlandić adds that if they get the opportunity to organize such an event, they expect more support from the state.
"We decided to push this story, but without the support of the state, it is difficult to implement such concepts. We hope that we will be able to realize this, because in the next ten days Blast representatives will visit Bar, and we will talk about organizing it in Montenegro in the next two years. We need to position ourselves as a Gaming City as soon as possible, and this is an ideal opportunity to achieve that," adds Orlandić.
If it is in Montenegro, the second "Montenegro future festival" will be opened by one of the best professional CS 2 players in the world, from Podgorica Pavle Bosković Maiden.
Secretary TO Bar Ilija Stojović so far he has visited many important gaming events.
"In recent years, the gaming industry has been in great expansion. After I had the opportunity to stay in the Romanian city of Iași and follow the eSports World Championship, I saw the impact and potential of that tournament. This is why we recognized that there is room for us as a municipality to develop, because these kinds of events are excellent for promoting the tourist offer and attracting guests. Also, I could see when we were in Copenhagen at the Blast tournament, how big the attendance is. There is a hall of 10.000 for two full days, and tickets are 250 euros each. I hope that in the next year or two we will bring the Blast to us and that we may organize a tournament of that capacity", said Stojović.
Unlike music festivals that take place during the tourist season, so the attendance data is falsified, gaming events will all be in the pre- and post-season. Orlandić does not hide that in this way they want the tourist season itself to last longer in the city under Rumija.
"So, last year we had twice as many events as in previous years, and we plan to increase the number of events this year. In Bar, as well as in all other coastal municipalities, hotel capacities are almost full in June, July, and August. Currently, eight top hotels are being built in Bar in different positions. Until they are completed, and we consider them to be the engine of the city's development, we focused on two branches - active rest, and gaming and new technologies. We want to change the image of our city where we live and to position it in a different way. We are also in negotiations to hold a famous technology conference in the second half of the year, which means already a country in Europe. It is not yet time to talk about it, but we are trying to agree with the state that this conference will be held in Bar. The point of the stories is that it should all happen in the pre-season and that our economy would feel the benefits of all that," concludes Orlandić.
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