Guca 2026 Kicks Off Tomorrow, Hosted by Marko Keselj

The 65th anniversary edition of the Dragacevo Trumpet Festival opens tomorrow, August 7, and this year’s host is basketball player Marko Keselj. The festival runs through August 9, and the schedule and nightly orchestra lineup have now been published.

The opening follows the order Guca has kept for decades. The festival flag goes up at the Trumpeter Monument, the festival anthem “Sa Ovcara i Kablara” is played, and only then does the program move to the stage. The event is organized by SKYMUSIC, the Lucani municipality, the Guca Cultural Center and the Dragacevo Tourist Organization. Crowds in Guca had already built up a day before the official start.

The daytime program starts earlier than most visitors expect. The Guca Cultural Center stage opens on the first day at 3 p.m. with the concert “Iz srca Dragaceva,” featuring local folklore ensembles, traditional singing groups and trumpet orchestras. The same afternoon brings a toast givers’ competition and a contest for the best folk costume, followed by performances from the finalist orchestras and the announcement of the afternoon competition winners. The first evening on that stage closes with the Gobovic Sisters.

Who plays which night at the stadium?

The evening program runs at the Dragacevo Stadium, and it is what the whole festival is measured by.

• Friday: opens with Slobodan Trkulja and Balkanopolis, then the Dejan Petrovic Big Band takes the stage, and the night closes with a midnight concert featuring all of this year’s finalist orchestras.
• Saturday: the program opens with the concert “Pobedili su, zasluzili su,” featuring last year’s laureates, the orchestras of Vladimir Ivanovic, Elvis Bajramovic, Dragacevske Trube, Dragan Pavlovic and the Knjazevac orchestra from Knjazevac. They are followed on stage by Boban Markovic, Dejan Lazarevic and Ekrem Mamutovic.
• Sunday: the final competition of Serbia’s trumpet orchestras, “Sa Ovcara i Kablara,” followed by a concert from Vlada Panovic’s folk orchestra with guests Nada Topcagic, Rade Jorovic, Marina Stankic and Nenad Manojlovic. The festival closes with Dejan Jevdjic’s orchestra.

Saturday’s laureates concert is the reason Sunday’s final is not just a one-weekend contest. Whoever takes the festival prize on Sunday joins that same Saturday lineup the following August, the lineup that this year includes Ivanovic and Bajramovic. It is the only way to earn a slot in Guca in front of a full stadium, which is why the final is played harder than the schedule alone suggests.

What happens during the day, away from the stadium

The program on the Cultural Center stage starts at 2 p.m. on both Saturday and Sunday. Saturday opens with the cultural and artistic program “Igra kolo kraj Bjelice,” featuring folklore ensembles, after which the stage is taken over by the “Abrasevic” cultural and artistic society from Kragujevac. In the afternoon, the “Iz srca Dragaceva” concert returns, followed by a competition for young trumpet orchestras of Serbia and the program “Truba trubu zove,” featuring performances from the finalists. The day closes with the announcement of the winners in the young orchestras category.

The last day on that stage belongs to folklore. The Cacak “Abrasevic” society performs traditional dances, and the “Deca Graca” artistic ensemble, led by Julijana Protic, closes the daytime cultural program of the anniversary edition.

Alongside the music, all-day content runs throughout: a book fair, a street of old crafts, reviews of cultural and artistic societies, a re-enactment of a traditional Dragacevo wedding, and the traditional folk multi-event competition.

When is Guca on television?

Anyone who cannot make it to Dragacevo can follow the festival on Radio Television of Serbia. Delayed broadcasts of the most significant performances air Friday, Saturday and Sunday, August 7, 8 and 9, on RTS 2 starting at 10 p.m. The same content runs on the thematic channel RTS Kolo on August 8, 9 and 10 starting at 6 p.m.

The “Sa Ovcara i Kablara” competition, the reason people come to Guca in the first place, airs Monday, August 10, at 6 p.m. on RTS Kolo. That is when viewers outside Dragacevo will find out who took the top trumpet prize of the 65th festival.