Serifovic in Vela Luka: “I Didn't Come to Hear a Concert”
The main night of the Trag u beskraju festival played out on a floating stage in front of the Vela Luka waterfront, with Marija Serifovic watching from the crowd.
Marija Serifovic spent Wednesday night standing in the crowd in Vela Luka, and posted about it on her social media account once the music stopped. She was there for the main concert of Trag u beskraju, the festival held in memory of Oliver Dragojevic, which started at 9 p.m. on July 29, 2026 on the island of Korcula.
In her post she wrote that she had crossed one item off her own wish list.
“We all have a wish list of some kind. Some wishes are big, some are very small. Last night I crossed one of them off - I wanted to feel what the love that a town and a nation keep for their artist actually looks like.”
She closed the post in three short lines.
“I did not come to listen to a concert. I came to understand why some people never really leave. Now I understand.”
Serifovic was not on the bill. She came as a guest, and that is the only reason her name turned up in Serbian media alongside this year’s edition.
A floating stage in front of the waterfront
The stage was built on the water, in front of the Vela Luka waterfront, so the audience followed the show from the shore. Organisers expected around 30,000 visitors in town. Croatian public broadcaster HRT carried the concert live, and once the broadcast ended the Ante Gelo Band played on.
The line-up on the floating stage:
- Petar Graso
- Zorica Kondza
- Nina Badric
- Matija Cvek
- Ivica Sikiric Ico
- Jakov Jozinovic
- Marko Tolja
- Iva Ajdukovic
- Ines Trickovic
- Klapa Osjak
A symphony orchestra backed the singers, conducted by maestro Alan Bjelinski. The production is signed by Ante Gelo, who worked with Oliver Dragojevic for years. That detail explains why the concert sounds the way it does every summer: the arrangements are run by musicians who played with Oliver while he was alive, not by a team that arrived afterwards.
Why is the concert held in Vela Luka?
Because Vela Luka is where Oliver was born. The singer died in 2018, and since then the festival has become a fixed part of the town’s summer, repeated every year in late July. A place that normally runs on tourism operates at a completely different scale during those days, because 30,000 people is many times the number of permanent residents.
Oliver was never a foreign name to Serbian audiences. His songs are still sung at weddings and family celebrations across Serbia, which is why Serifovic’s post was read here as something personal rather than as a postcard from the coast.
What happens in Vela Luka before July 31?
The programme runs from July 26 to July 31, and Wednesday night was not the end of it. On Thursday, July 30, a charity football match is played at the Mocni laz pitch, followed by a concert featuring:
- Drazen Zecic
- Alen Nizetic
- Giuliano
- Hari Roncevic
- Pero Panjkovic
The festival closes on Friday, July 31, with Nina Badric and the Ante Gelo Acoustic Orchestra at 9.30 p.m. That show is sold out, which means Vela Luka stays full to the end of the week even though the biggest night has already passed.
Badric is the only performer with two appearances in town this week, one on the floating stage in front of tens of thousands of people and one in a far smaller format two days later.
