EXIT says it will stage a “special edition” next year at the Petrovaradin Fortress after a student-backed election victory makes a homecoming possible, following pressure that led it to pull out last year.
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EXIT music festival founder and CEO Dusan Kovacevic says the event plans a “special edition” next year, returning to Serbia after a student-backed victory in the Oct. 25 parliamentary election.
EXIT last year withdrew from Serbia, citing pressure from authorities over its support for a student movement behind anti-corruption protests. Kovacevic said the festival was “blacklisted,” lost funding, and faced security threats, blackmail and cancellations by sponsors that had backed it from its early days. “It was not possible to continue organizing EXIT in Serbia under such pressures and such circumstances,” Kovacevic said.
Authorities at the time denied political pressure on the festival. The pressure followed protests that erupted after a deadly train station canopy collapse in Novi Sad in 2024, which killed 16 people, and many in Serbia believed the collapse stemmed from corruption and negligence.
Kovacevic said the decision to leave and now return was linked to a shift in political conditions, saying, “We always said when freedom is back in Serbia, EXIT will be back as well.” He also said it was a homecoming enabled by a “new generation of activists” following the election results.
Traditionally held every July at the Petrovaradin Fortress in Novi Sad, EXIT has hosted hundreds of international performers over the years, including acts such as the Pet Shop Boys, Billy Idol, Moby and the Prodigy, and it draws hundreds of thousands of visitors worldwide.
Kovacevic said EXIT’s homecoming plan follows earlier risks taken during its 2025 anniversary festival, when he said the group was nearly left without official security after it displayed banners in support of the students. He also said Italian singer Gala opened the main stage alongside protesting students, and that the festival “could do it no other way” because, in his view, it was “born out of” social responsibility rather than building it as a separate sector.
While EXIT had initially planned to return in 2028, Kovacevic said “thousands and thousands” of messages urged a 2027 event, adding, “The excitement is huge,” and “We all expect something very special to happen.”
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