Earlier this spring, our Prime Minister had asked us not to cancel the festival but rather postpone to mid-August. At that time, the number of new daily cases was on a steady, sharp decline and even our most cautious health experts have had several public statements that suggested the zero will be reached in June, almost two months before the new date in August. Also, the whole of Serbia was fully reopened at that time, with no restrictions in an open-air public gathering and all borders open.
We have lived in a fully reopened country for two months now, and in the past few weeks, there has been a new development of the epidemic in in several municipalities in Serbia with an increase of new cases daily. Those municipalities have been placed under close monitoring with some stricter regulations applied.
In the City of Novi Sad and Vojvodina province where the EXIT Festival takes place, at this point, there is no emergency situation declared, but the new safety measures are possible in the coming days.
In any case, we want to be extra cautious as the health of our audience, artists and all festival staff are our top priority. That is why we decided to additionally reduce the festival capacity and limit the number of attendees. This limitation might be over 90% of the usual festival capacity in order to make sure that everything goes as safely as possible. If the health situation doesn’t improve there could be even a 99% reduction with just a symbolic few hundred people in the audience in which case we will be focusing our main activity into the online stream.
We will continue to consult closely with the health and government officials regarding all safety measures and will follow their guidance on what will be possible five weeks from now in regards to the festival format.
We thank you for your support in order to make this important endeavor and send a strong message of hope to the whole world.
