Government helps fund Guča festival

Government helps fund Guča festival

"The Serbian Government has become a strategic partner of the festival," said one of the main organizers Slobodan Jolović.

“The largest portion of investments were made by the local self-administration and in the last several years, we have made a lot of income from the festival. Of course, help from the government is also crucial,” he said.

“I hope that the government will help with a project planned to be finished by 2010."

"We are planning to start building a National Library in Guča, a Brass Museum and ecology and tourism universities, as well as finish some infrastructural projects,” Jolović said.

A helicopter landing pad is also being built in Guča.

As the support of the government increased recently, some have began to criticize the festival as being an embarrassment for Serbia, stating that Guča needs to take heed of the EXIT festival in Novi Sad, which is in the opinion of some critics, a festival that is up to international standards.

Bojan Đorđević, who is the art director of the Belgrade Ring Ring festival, who also promotes world and brass-related music, believes that there is room in Serbia for both Exit and Guča.

“Guča is a festival with a great tradition, but has an administration that tries to find the best way to make sure that the municipality benefits financially. They have strayed in the past ten years, but Guča is something that needs to exist, and it should be a festival of good music, good fun, good food and good drinks,” Đorđević said.

He said that EXIT and Guča can exist in parallel, and that it should remain that way.

“The people who are advertising Serbia through EXIT and Guča are not naive,” Đorđević said.

Guča is expecting about 500,000 visitors this year, so security measures will be increased. Traffic control will be rigorous from today to Sunday, police have said.

The festival’s host for the third year in a row will be Infrastructure Minister Velimir Ilić and the festival will be opened by Republic of Srpska Prime Minister Milorad Dodik.