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Serbia: the Exit music festival against all odds despite the Covid

2021-05-09T12:14:38.813Z


The Exit international music festival, which usually attracts tens of thousands of spectators in Novi Sad, Serbia, will take place in July, ...


The Exit international music festival, which usually draws tens of thousands of spectators in Novi Sad, Serbia, will take place in July, with the ambition of being the first event of this magnitude to be staged in Europe since the start of the pandemic.

Festival spokesperson Sanjin Djukic claimed that medical experts had decided that it was possible to organize the festival in a health-safe manner if spectators produced vaccination certificates or negative test results.

To read also: "Seen from elsewhere" N ° 46 - In Serbia, vaccination for all

"We can say with absolute certainty that attending the Exit will be much safer than going to a bar or taking a bus,"

he told AFP.

Tickets for this festival, which drew 200,000 spectators in 2019, are already on sale with the date of the event, which will take place from July 8 to 11 in a fortress overlooking the city of Novi Sad.

Music stars like David Guetta, DJ Snake, Nina Kraviz, Tyga, Sepultura and Metronomy are on the program.

For the 2021 edition, the organizers are inspired by the test concerts that took place recently in Spain and England, apparently without consequences for contamination.

But even if the contaminations curve is gradually decreasing in Serbia, epidemiologists are reluctant about an event of such magnitude, especially since many spectators come from abroad.

"Any gathering is a risk and we can expect a certain number of contaminations,"

epidemiologist Zoran Radovanovic told AFP.

“The only dilemma is: what do you consider to be an acceptable risk

,” he stressed, noting that this risk would be reduced with the increase in the vaccination rate.

"If a festival were organized today, it would be a disaster, but in July I believe the situation will be much better"

, he added. The organizers benefited from a huge boost when the town hall of Novy Sad gave its agreement at the end of April for the festival to take place.

"We must also think about the mental health of our citizens, especially young people who have been deprived of daily activities for more than 14 months,"

the mayor of Novi Sad Milos Vucevic told AFP. The city councilor, who is part of the crisis unit charged by the government with the fight against the epidemic, declared that the festival would be

"a symbol of Serbia's victory over the pandemic".

The festival, which was born twenty years ago as part of a protest movement against then-era strongman Slobodan Milosevic, has hosted stars such as The Cure, Beastie Boys, former singer of Led Zeppelin Robert Plant, Manu Chao and Wu-Tang Clan.

Source: lefigaro

All news articles on 2021-05-09

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