Dino Merlin's Kraljevo Show Canceled in 100,000 Euro Row
Dino Merlin's concert in Kraljevo was canceled six days before the date, and a dispute between organizer Sounder Music and the singer's team over 100,000 euros paid in advance is now headed to court.
On the evening of August 31, tickets for Dino Merlin’s concert in Kraljevo were still available on Tickets.rs, even though Belgrade media had already reported that day that the show was off. N1 emailed the organizer asking for confirmation, and by the end of the day no answer had come back, nor was there any official statement about a cancellation on the Facebook page of the company Sounder Music. Today, September 1, that statement exists, and it is far more serious than a simple announcement that the show would not happen.
The concert had been scheduled for September 5 at the airfield of the “Mihajlo Petrovic” Aero Club in Kraljevo, and for months it had been the subject of an entirely different dispute. A veterans’ association from Kraljevo had demanded the show be canceled, a petition circulated around the city, and we covered that controversy earlier (Karleusa: Why is Merlin allowed to sing in Kraljevo?). The concert has now indeed been canceled, but the reason the organizer gave has nothing to do with the petitions. It comes down to production, the stage, and, as it soon turned out, money.
Who actually canceled the concert?
The organizer, the company Sounder Music doo from Vrnjacka Banja, announced on the evening of August 31 that it was canceling the show because of the company DIGI MEDIA PRODUCTION DOO Belgrade, which was contractually obligated to provide the production, the stage, and all technical conditions for the concert.
“We are forced to make this decision due to the failure of DIGI MEDIA PRODUCTION DOO Belgrade to fulfil its contractual obligations,” the organizer’s statement reads, explaining that the company did not guarantee an “adequate level of technical and organizational safety,” even though it had been aware of the deadlines and conditions for the event from the start.
A day later, on September 1, the same organizer went considerably further. In a new statement, Sounder Music claims that Dino Merlin, together with his team, received 100,000 euros in advance, in cash, without ever issuing an invoice, and that he did so knowing the concert would not go ahead, ever since the band played its show at the Kosevo stadium in Sarajevo.
“Dino Merlin, whose canceled concert in Kraljevo had been scheduled for September 5, 2026, knowingly defrauded the organizer together with his team,” Sounder Music’s statement reads.
In the same statement, the organizer adds that the production company Digi Media and manager Dada Bulat were in charge of negotiating and signing the contract on Merlin’s behalf, that an invoice for the 100,000 euros received was never issued, and that it is now announcing “a large number of criminal complaints and lawsuits” against both companies over material and non-material damages. As for refunding ticket buyers, the organizer says, that responsibility falls on Digi Media and Merlin’s team, not on Sounder Music.
Dada Bulat sees the story in reverse. In a written response to the media, she first said:
“I learned from electronic media that the concert organizer, ‘Sounder Music,’ had made the decision to cancel it.”
She then explained why, in her reading, the 100,000 euros is not what the organizer claims it to be:
“The decision was made and published unilaterally, without any prior notice to or consultation with the other parties involved in organizing the concert. The business cooperation agreement signed between ‘Sounder Music’ and ‘Digi Media’ was never terminated, nor did ‘Digi Media’ take part in the decision to cancel the concert. The amount of 100,000 euros was paid by the organizer as a guarantee for the concert being held successfully, and that guarantee is governed separately by its own contract. As a consequence of the decision to cancel the concert, it is the organizer’s obligation to ensure a timely refund to all ticket buyers.”
The two versions, then, differ not only in tone but in the chronology itself. Sounder Music claims Merlin’s team knew the deal was falling apart as far back as Sarajevo, yet took the guarantee payment and kept negotiating without ever intending to follow through. Bulat maintains that the agreement between Sounder Music and Digi Media was never terminated, that it was Sounder Music, and Sounder Music alone, that made the decision to cancel without consulting anyone, and that it is precisely Sounder Music, as the author of that decision, that owes ticket buyers their money back.
Six days before the scheduled date, instead of a concert announcement in Kraljevo there is now a dispute over who owes whom an explanation, and, ultimately, who owes whom money. Both sides are announcing legal action. What happens to the tickets that, at least at the moment the cancellation news was already circulating in the media, were still on sale on Tickets.rs remains, for now, unanswered by either side of the dispute.
