Exit Festival in Novi Sad, Serbia.
REBEL Media/WireImageSerbia's EXIT Festival kicks off it's four-day dance music event today (July 8), improbably becoming the first major music festival to take place in Europe since the coronavirus pandemic took hold early last year.
Celebrating its 20-year anniversary in 2021, the festival expects to host 40,000 attendees per day at the Petrovaradin Fortress in Nova Sad, in the northern part of the country and about an hour from the capital city of Belgrade. The event extends through Sunday.
After a series of false starts for music festivals throughout Europe — as organizers deal with constantly shifting government regulations and safety protocols — EXIT is moving forward with an approved safety plan that requires all attendees to be vaccinated, to have antibodies or to test negative for COVID-19 via PCR or rapid antigen testing.
Festival organizers says that attendees from 70 countries are expected to attend EXIT 2021. According to Reuters, Serbia has had nine new COVID-19 infections per 100,000 people reported in the last seven days. Travelers entering Serbia from the U.S. must present a negative a negative PCR test not older than 48 hours.
The event's lineup includes roughly 300 DJs and producers including Paul Kalkbrenner, David Guetta, DJ Snake, Tyga, Charlotte de Witte, Solomon, Amelie Lens, Maceo Plex, Robin Schulz, Asaf Avidan, Honey Dijon, Hot Since 82, Medusa, Paul van Dyk, Artbat and more. Artists will perform on more than 20 stages and areas throughout the site.
EXIT begins less than a month after the cancellation of Tomorrowland 2021, which had been scheduled to take place over two weekends -- Aug. 27-29 and Sept. 3-5 -- in Boom, Belgium. This cancellation was a surprise, and a significant blow, to Tomorrowland organizers, who had anticipated hosting approximately 75,000 people per day at the festival. The event was cancelled after local government officials cited concerns about rising cases of the COVID-19 Delta variant and the limitations of enacting health and safety protocols for such a massive crowd.
Meanwhile, Ibiza has seen a glimmer of hope after being put on the U.K.'s "green list" of travel destinations, meaning that UK citizens are able to travel to the island. Still, it's not entirely business as usual on the famed party island. Last week, the Spanish government announced that travelers arriving in the Balearic Islands -- including popular tourist spots Mallorca and Ibiza -- will have to present a negative COVID-19 test result or proof of vaccination.
Ibiza's major clubs have yet to say whether or when they will be allowed to reopen. A new cluster of virus cases in Mallorca last month led health officials there to quarantine some 2,000 people in Madrid following parties by Spanish students celebrating the end of their school year.
The U.K., for its part, says it will reopen for outdoor festivals and full-capacity live shows starting on July 19, after pushing back that timetable a month due to a spike in virus infections tied to the Delta variant. That will be in time for Creamfields to still take place, which is currently scheduled for Aug. 26-29.
EXIT Festival 2021's status as first major music festival to happen in Europe since the pandemic began adds to the event's already rich history. EXIT was founded in 2000 as a student movement fighting for democracy and freedom in Serbia and the Balkans, which suffered through a series of bloody wars between 1991 and 2001, which led to the breakup of the Yugoslav state. After the Yugoslavian general election in 2000, EXIT moved in 2001 to the 240-year-old Petrovaradin Fortress, which is settled on the banks on the Danube River.
While EXIT Festival had initially intended to celebrate its 20-year anniversary in 2020, organizers canceled the event amidst rising COVID-19 infections in Serbia and throughout Europe and the rest of the world. The cancellation happened after Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić attempted to save the 2020 festival, citing its historic importance to the Balkans region and impact on the country’s tourism.
EXIT is livestreaming sets through Sunday from itsYouTube and Facebook pages. The all-night event happens from 7 p.m. to 8 a.m. CET.
NEWS
Stormzy has shared that he is returning with renewed strength after a period of being “crippled by sadness” in 2025, while also pushing back against accusations that he was “selling out” following his collaboration with McDonald’s.
The collaboration was initially revealed early last year, when the UK rapper partnered with the fast food brand to launch the first Famous Order meal across the UK and Ireland. Fans were able to order his go to meal, and a selection of merchandise was released through the McDonald’s app at the same time.
The partnership sparked criticism from some quarters due to McDonald’s perceived support of Israel, with detractors arguing that the deal appeared to contradict Stormzy’s stated values. The artist, whose real name is Michael Ebenezer Kwadjo Omari Owuo Jr., has previously spoken publicly in support of Palestine and performed at a benefit concert in January 2024 to help raise funds for humanitarian aid.
The Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement had earlier backed an international boycott of McDonald’s after franchises in Israel distributed thousands of free meals to Israeli forces in the aftermath of Hamas’ October 7 attack.
Around the time the collaboration was announced, fans also noticed that the rapper had deleted a social media post from October 2023 in which he voiced his support for Palestine.
Stormzy later addressed what he described as a “twisted narrative” suggesting the post was removed because of the McDonald’s partnership. He clarified that the deletion was part of a wider clean up of his social media account, during which he removed numerous older posts.
“In that post I spoke about #FreePalestine, oppression and injustice and my stance on this has not changed,” he wrote at the time. “The brands I work with can’t tell me what to do and don’t tell me what to do otherwise I wouldn’t work with them.”
Now, Stormzy has shared another reflective message to usher in 2026, explaining that the previous year had been a deeply transformative chapter in his life, marked by his efforts to push through feeling “crippled by sadness”.
Opening the lengthy message, Stormzy described facing “a few unexpected twists and turns” at the beginning of 2025, experiences that he said strengthened his resilience and “put the final nail in the coffin of my desire to be understood”.
Reflecting on the reaction to the McDonald’s deal, he noted that “a lot of you [questioned] both my character and my integrity”, adding that a younger version of himself would have felt “compelled to quickly explain himself, and let you know that there is no world in which he would ever trade his humanity for cash”.
He explained that he no longer feels that pressure, saying he “couldn’t give a single fuck to explain that fact” because he does not “need to explain anything to anybody”.
Opening up further about the challenges he faced throughout the year, the ‘Hide & Seek’ rapper said he was determined not to allow “2025 have me on the backfoot, so I came out the first quarter with one hand down my trousers and my middle finger up”.
“Then towards the end of the summer I found myself crippled by sadness and I was struggling again,” he continued, adding that his faith and close circle of friends helped him find the strength to keep going.
“I was tested physically, spiritually, professionally and creatively. I had no choice but to reassess every detail of my life,” the post later shared. “So yes it’s been painful and at times I hated it but as the year ends and I reflect I can say that I am so so so so grateful for it.”
Looking ahead, he said that he has “gained a lot of clarity around who I am as a man and who I am as an artist, and in 2026 I want to honour that clarity with execution”.
He finished by revealing that he plans to step back from social media and confirmed that work is still ongoing on his fourth studio album.
Around the period of the McDonald’s controversy, the company’s CEO Chris Kempczinski stated that the brand had not taken sides in the conflict, describing the boycotts as “disheartening and ill founded” and attributing them to “misinformation”.
Elsewhere in Stormzy news, the London artist was awarded an honorary doctorate from Cambridge University last summer in recognition of the Stormzy Scholarship to Cambridge.
The scholarship programme began in 2018 and committed to funding two Black British students each year. With additional backing from HSBC UK, the scheme expanded to support 10 students annually, resulting in 56 students having their tuition fees and living costs fully covered.
