Sea Star Opens Summer in Umag as EXIT Stays Out of Serbia
The eighth Sea Star festival opens the European season in Umag, while EXIT spends another year away from Petrovaradin.
- The eighth Sea Star festival runs from May 28 to 31 on the Stella Maris lagoon in Umag.
- This year's edition is titled Summer's Awakening and opens the European festival season.
- EXIT is not taking place in Serbia in 2026, after its departure from Petrovaradin.
- CEO Dusan Kovacevic announced a global tour instead of the Novi Sad edition.
What fills the Stella Maris lagoon in Umag this week is not the hum of campers and vignettes, but a sound that carries across the water as the sun drops behind the Adriatic. The weekend of May 28 to 31 belongs to the eighth edition of the Sea Star festival, an event born out of the EXIT team and pitched, a little ceremonially, as the official opening of Europe’s festival season.
This year’s title, Summer’s Awakening, reads like the name of an ambient record, yet it describes exactly what happens at the threshold of summer. Last year the same site drew 44,000 visitors from more than 40 countries, a figure that long ago lifted Sea Star out of the local-party bracket and placed it on the regional festival map.
Who is on the bill this weekend?
The eighth edition gathers names that span nearly the full range of contemporary electronic music, from melodic techno to its harder strains. The lineup blends global headliners with rising acts.
- Boris Brejcha and his signature high-tech minimal sound
- Xzibit, a voice that belongs more to the hip-hop canon than the club
- Loreen, a Eurovision winner with a pop sensibility
- I Hate Models, Indira Paganotto, KI/KI and Layla Benitez for the tougher, dancefloor side of the night
Such a spread suggests Sea Star is not trying to be a niche festival, but rather to offer several distinct musical worlds across four days, each handing off to the next until dawn.
Why is EXIT not at Petrovaradin this year?
This season Sea Star also carries a weight that is not musical. The parent festival, EXIT, is not at the Petrovaradin Fortress after twenty-five years, and the organisers cited undemocratic pressure from the authorities over the team’s support for the student protests as the reason.
Festival CEO Dusan Kovacevic announced the decision with little room for interpretation.
There is no possibility for the EXIT festival to be held in Serbia in 2026.
In place of the Novi Sad edition, the organisers announced a global tour running through Croatia, North Macedonia, Malta, Egypt and India. The festival’s statement also included a line that frames its position as something beyond a mere cultural event.
For EXIT, music has always been more than entertainment, it is a force that connects people and builds bridges.
Seen that way, Umag becomes more than a summer destination. As the Stella Maris lagoon empties on Sunday night, one question outlasts the stage schedule: what does it mean for a city and a cultural scene when a festival with a quarter-century of history has to look for its audience everywhere except home?
