Croatian Garden Festival Announces Next Year Is Last

The Garden Festival has been instrumental in kickstarting the glut of UK managed festivals taking place in Croatia. Now these early adopters have announced that 2015's event, running from July 1st – 8th will be their 10th and final festival. The Garden's Tisno site will continue to be used for festival's, but it seems that The Garden as an event has run it's course. Founder Nick Colgan has remained fairly vague on the specifics for the festival's closure, writing a statement on the website that was long on words but short on content-

“It is true that we have decided next year will be our last ever Garden Festival. It is a decision we have thought long and hard over and do not make lightly, yet we all feel the time is right to conclude what has been an incredible adventure for everyone involved. We started in 2006 with just 300 people in Petrcane, and since then we have helped create this incredible scene in Croatia, with so many other festivals now spread across the country. It feels like we have got a bit of a legacy to leave in Tisno, and this is something which we are truly proud of; and rest assured 2015 will end with a bang as we will be creating the best Garden yet! We will then continue to put all of our efforts into managing and refining The Garden Tisno site, for the other festivals here and we hope some new events too which will be announced in due course. We will be very sad to finish, but we also know there is a very exciting future ahead too.”

Reading between the lines, it would seem that competing in the cut throat, over subscribed world of festivals has taken it's toll – when The Garden started they had a USP that has been quickly emulated by a horde of new events, with more and more promoters trying to chomp at the same pie. In some ways The Garden suffered from being the first in a field – as the most well known Croatian event, it increasingly attracted punters less interested in attending a music festival and more concerned with notching up an 'experience' they could spice up their feed with. Whether this decision will now signal a general thinning out of the Croatian festival circuit remains to be seen.