Club on Karleusa: Show Starts After Midnight

A club on Croatia’s coast where Jelena Karleusa’s performance was announced has issued a statement on its social media accounts after insults and threats began flooding in. It is the first time the organizer itself, rather than outside observers, has spoken about the situation.

The statement has two parts. The first is calm and addressed to the club’s followers.

Dear followers, we are aware of the different opinions and reactions surrounding the announced concert on August 15. We want to point out that our program runs during the night hours. The club’s doors open at 11 PM, while performers take the stage after midnight

The second part is considerably sharper and addresses the messages the club has been receiving since the performance was announced.

We ask for mutual respect and decent communication. We will not tolerate hate speech, insults or threats directed at anyone through our social media

The singer’s name is not mentioned once in the statement. The club writes about the “announced concert on August 15” and its own schedule, not about the performer coming that day.

Why does the club bring up midnight?

The only concrete detail the club provided is the schedule. Doors open at 11 PM, performers go on after midnight. The club did not explain why it highlighted that particular detail, but the math is simple: if the program starts after midnight, the performance formally falls on August 16.

August 15 is a public holiday in Croatia, the Assumption of Mary (Velika Gospa). The rest of the statement does not address the substance of the complaints the club is receiving, it sticks to the schedule.

Where it started

The wave of negative reactions started on X. From there, the messages spread to the club’s own accounts, and that was the point at which the organizer decided to issue a statement.

Serbian coverage describes the club as one of the largest on the Croatian coast, but its name has not been disclosed anywhere. No estimate of how many messages arrived has been published, nor whether the club reported anything to police.

The petition concerns a different city and a different month

A petition calling for Karleusa’s concert to be banned has been circulating alongside this story, so it is worth separating the two matters, which have nothing to do with each other.

• the petition was launched over a concert in Skopje, at Jane Sandanski Arena
• that concert is scheduled for October 17, two months later
• the reason signers cite is the alleged promotion of satanism, and the petition has been circulating since late July

The performance on Croatia’s coast is a separate event, in a different country and on a different date. The threats sent to the club are not part of that petition, and in its statement the club treats them as messages directed at itself.

A song currently topping the charts in Croatia

There is a detail that makes the situation unusual. While the club is receiving messages over her upcoming appearance, Karleusa’s new song is, by her own account, number one on the trending chart in Croatia as well.

She wrote about the audience’s reaction on X.

I cry as I read these wonderful comments on YouTube… Thank you. Together we made this sad song a huge success in just four days, and it is number one on the trending chart in Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Croatia, Austria… Sometimes life breaks even the strongest of us, but we are only human. Real strength is holding your heart together, finding the courage and strength to start again, from zero. I want all of you, after hard breaks in life, to be able to say again: “Everything is okay now.” Your Jelena Karleusa loves you

That post was made before the announcement of the performance stirred reactions. As of this writing, the singer has not commented on the messages the club received.

What comes next

Eight days remain until August 15. The performance has not been cancelled, the club refers to it in its statement as still on, and neither side has announced a change of date.

What sets this reaction apart is its speed. Organizers in situations like this usually wait for things to cool down online, but this club issued its statement immediately and called the messages it received threats, even though it never named the singer.

What the club plans to do with those messages after the statement remains an open question. Its post makes no mention of a police report, nor any announcement that it will close its accounts to comments.