One of the most popular European metal festivals is apparently moving from Slovenia to Croatia, but not before 2022.
The fate of the Slovenian MetalDays festival has been announced in a recent post given by Boban Milonović, the owner of the festival. In a long statement, Boban revealed that the festival has to change its location. There are a few reasons for that, the most important of which are problems with local people and politicians.
Below is the excerpt from the Facebook post by Boban. This is an unpleasant surprise for all Slovenian festival-goers. But on the flip side, this is good news for a festival scene in Croatia, as another quality music event is coming to our country.
I must say that I understand all of you that say MetalDays is Slovenian festival and it belongs at Sotocje. I am sorry, I just do not share same opinion as you. There are some things that we have to consider and think about realistically; Let us start with the fact that we move the festival only because we have no other option. Not in Tolmin and not in Slovenia.
Locations that we found in Slovenia and thought that it could be great place to move the festival just did not wanted us. In some cases Politicians wanted us but inhabitants did not, in other was other way around. So we started to look in Austria, Italy and Croatia. We found in every country locations that were great, but the one in Croatia is just out of this world and the decision was easy.
Next thing is that politicians did not think about our festival back then when they planed the road there. They had other plans and festival was not that important I guess. I can’t say 100% how it was as I wasn’t there. I can just assume. With the time we expanded and bought Punk Rock Holiday festival, founded Motorcity festival and Tmin Rock festival and also promoted Overjam Reggae festival 2017-2019. I think that with our work, the town has profited financial-wise, and promotion-wise. It seems that it isn’t enough and that the road is of bigger importance. Again, I am not living in Tolmin and I can’t say if the town need this road or not.
And the most important part of the story…the road; As you know it will divide festival area in two parts going directly through the camp, slightly more on the side towards the city. We had two meetings with authorities and I can easily say we did not move much forward. You have to understand that road takes 30% of our camp away from us. Our camp is already packed now, and there is no accomodation free in the area. So, that means 30% of our visitors have no place to stay. Yes, one can say “make festival smaller”. Of course we can do that…but why shall we?
So, we asked them to close the road for two weeks so we can stage the festival but the answer was no. Our idea was to use the road as Parking space so this 30% of the visitors could fit into the camp if we move cars to the road. It was not something they were up to.
They offered to close the road just few days before the festival start, so we can have the production done, and then the road would be opened during the festival time. Hm…our question was, ok, what happens if some tired truck driver falls asleep, drive off the road into the camp and kill people that have tents next to the road. Their answer was “this is your problem and your responsibility”. This was the moment where I decided to move MetalDays to the new location. These are three main points and crucial for the whole story, and I hope you can now better understand what is behind that decision to move the festival.
There are countless other small issues that I would really expect not to have them after all those years, but we just moving nowhere, and not by my fault.
Boban Milunović, MetalDays
MetalDays 2021 will still take place in Slovenia, while MetalDays 2022 is presumably gonna be taking place in the area around Plitvice lakes in Croatia.
Source: Facebook