Concert meets Oktoberfest meets Woodstock

 

 

Forget Rocking the Daisies, forget Oppikoppi, forget Tomorrow Land, forget Burning man, forget Glastonbury, matter of fact forget any big music festival you may have heard of or been to. Let me introduce you to something less commercial, more exotic, a little more wild and something you probably never even knew existed. Let me introduce you to the Guča (pronounced Goo-cha) trumpet festival. Yes...you read right...a trumpet festival.

The trumpet is a universally found instrument which is mostly associated with military wake up calls, wars, weddings and funerals. At the Guča festival, this instrument becomes the centre of one of the wildest parties found on the planet. Time magazine even listed it in its “Five Events You Won’t Want to Miss in 2013” at the beginning of this year. So it’s got to be good right? I don’t think any article I, or anyone else, writes will ever do Guča any justice. It’s one of those things you just have to experience. 

Guča is a three-day event held annually in the south-eastern European country of Serbia. More specifically, in the small town of Guča which is situated 3 hours west of Serbia’s Capital, Belgrade. The little town has a population of just over 2000 people. Come festival time Guča welcomes 300 000-600 000 visitors (you can just imagine how bad the traffic is getting into town). Unlike other festivals, the party never stops. If you're not by the stages, you're on the street drinking and partying it up. There’s no sleeping here. If you’re there, you’re there to party.

 

 

The festival is divided into three components: the opening concert on the Friday, Saturday’s celebration and then the final competition on Sunday. It’s a hedonist’s true paradise with phenomenal food to indulge in, lots of alcohol (in 2006, 4000 HECTOLITRES of beer alone was consumed), beautiful people surrounding you and of course the incredible vibe which one needs to experience to understand.

  

 

The music ranges from slow emotive songs, which seems to increase the beer consumption drastically, to upbeat Gypsy music which will have you forgetting all your worries and dancing the night and day away. Yes, Gypsy is a derogatory term. However, there is still an essence of mystic and beauty which is associated with the term. The fascinating part about all this is, while the Romani (the PC term for Gypsies) have a negative image and are horrendously treated around the rest of Europe. At Guča, the Romani music is celebrated to as if it were the end of the world.

 

 

 

At a fraction of the cost of any other festival, you will experience one of the craziest events on Europe’s summer calendar. It’s a festival where traditional meets the new, where the old party with the young, where no one is interested in your skin colour or your religion. It’s a festival which celebrates life in the most spectacular and unorthodox manner. Guča, August 2014....here I come.

Here are some clips documenting Kiera Chaplin's experience at Guča.....

1 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C9doYibxJ_A
2 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C8i_ZdCzkjs
3 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1gprp5sdlt8

 

Look at that I wrote that entire post without saying “it’ll blow you away” HAHA....YES, I know....I know…till next time