While many festivals in Croatia are concentrated on the coast, the greenest festival of them all came to a successful conclusion in northern Croatia on August 6, 2016.
The greenest festival in Croatia – as it is nicknamed – is over. Forestland 2016 lasted for 3 days, 72 hours and featured over 50 DJ’s from three continents!
Coming from Mexico and America to Europe the DJ’s blasted their music from the speakers of three stages, one more than the previous year. Three days of music, camping, and dancing were the signature of this year’s Forestland Festival.
Based in Brezje, Međimurje, the green heart of Croatia, Forestland festival is the youngest of the “big” festivals that Croatia’s becoming famous for. Established in 2013, Forestland quickly grew and drew over 12 000 visitors over three days this year. With 500 campers and more than 150 DJ’s and staff that stayed in Međimurje, Forestland is responsible for over 2% of total Međimurje’s tourist overnight stays.
From the first DJ – Slovenia’s Vito Markeen to the last, Croatia’s best Phoenix Kraundler and DJ Yapa from Varaždin, the music didn’t stop for a beat. For 72 hours with the end on sunday at noon the speakers blasted the biggest electro, edm, trance, psy, house, trap, dnb and other genre hits.
“The festival exceeded our expectations. We only had two small hiccups, rain on Friday was the first. We had to cover the main stage and put the programme in the underground stage dome. However, not all was bad, we ended up with the best intimate party of our lives. It was wild under there while the rain was wild outside!” said Saša Mikac, the resident DJ and organizer. “The other problem we had was that the Canadian stars Dzeko and Torres cancelled their show due to logistic problems. We had to improvise and we ended by making the wild Coachella style party. The DJ’s stepped in, wend back to back, played longer, played better and the crowd went wild!”
The Forestland festival estimates over 12 000 people who passed through the gates over the course of this three day festival making it one of the biggest inland festivals outside Croatia’s capital Zagreb.
The 2017 event is already in plans and it’ll be something different for the festival’s 5th edition. Keep your eye on this festival it may yet surprise you!
