The Sonus Festival celebrates its tenth anniversary in 2023, with more big names recently added to join Sven Väth, Richie Hawtin and many others at Zrće on Pag island.
Music will be pumping from dusk till dawn across the three stages provided by key Croatian clubs Aquarius, Kalypso and Papaya, with boat and pool parties a-plenty. All takes place August 20-24 – for details, see the Sonus Festival website.
To mark ten years of Croatia’s major music festival, Time Out Croatia speaks with its co-founder, Dalibor Oliver Zjačić, about how the event came together and what gives Sonus the edge over the many competitors:
Time Out Croatia: How did Sonus come about? What made you think of Croatia when deciding to set up a festival there?
Dalibor Oliver Zjačić: Although I was born in Germany, my parents have Croatian roots and I spent most of my childhood summers on the Adriatic coast. It was always a very special place for me and after a summer visit in 2011, I thought there was immense potential to create a destination festival here. I was often in Ibiza during the ’90s, when the island headed the world’s electronic music scene, attracting people from all over the world. Twenty years later, I thought this could be partially replicated in Croatia, particularly at Zrće beach.
By knowing how beautiful the sea is in Croatia and how delicious the local food, I knew instantly that we would have a good foundation to build a festival and invite international guests to our corner of the world. We wanted to offer them a unique combination of a holiday destination with an amazing setting to listen to electronic music. The idea was to offer industry-leading content over five days and nights so they would have the chance to see as many artists as possible while enjoying their holidays in Croatia.
Time Out Croatia: How has Sonus developed over the last decade? What were the key steps?
DOZ: Sonus has become one of the best-known destination festivals around the globe focusing on techno music. From the beginning, we have been able to grow our customer base steadily. Now, we have people from over 80 countries coming to Sonus, so this is significant for Croatian tourism. Guests at Sonus today will become Croatian tourists in the future. Also, we believe it is a very important event within Croatia’s local electronic scene for established and upcoming artists to showcase their talents.
I think some of the key steps were booking a high density of internationally recognised artists and headliners that would be difficult to attract for even the largest cities. Giving people the chance to see so many artists in just five days definitely increased the interest for electronic music lovers around the world to come to Sonus.
Time Out Croatia: At what point did you think, ‘Yes, we've cracked it!’?
DOZ: When we sold out all our tickets in year 2, that was a key moment for us. At that point, we understood that we had created something special which could be a welcome alternative to some of the events happening in Ibiza.
Another milestone was when we restarted the Sonus festival after the pandemic, when virtually no tourism existed. After not working for two years, we were afraid some of our customers might have forgotten us, but in fact, we had our best year and we were sold out yet again. This showed us how resilient our brand is and gave us a great feeling for our future work.
Time Out Croatia: How does Sonus differ from the many other music festivals in Croatia? Do you deliberately try to differentiate from your peers?
DOZ: I think Sonus differentiates itself simply by the international headliners we’ve brought to Croatia. We made sure, particularly from the beginning, to cover every genre of electronic and techno music so that any visitor can have the listening experience of a lifetime. We wanted to focus on the artists that have been playing at the biggest festivals in the world for the last couple of decades. With great artists come keen festivalgoers who have an appreciation for this kind of music. And often, with guests that have similar sound tastes, an electric atmosphere is created.
We are also known for presenting every year up to 10% local and regional artists in the line-up to support their personal development and the local scene itself.
Time Out Croatia: Have you ever thought of relocating the festival to a different part of Croatia?
DOZ: In the last few years, we’ve had requests to relocate within Croatia, but we never considered these offers seriously. Over the development of Sonus, we’ve come to build a harmonious relationship with Pag’s local community and the authorities in Novalija. Now it feels like home for our team and we would rather develop the current area where we are based rather than move to a different location.
We do have several offers from destinations in other countries that want to host the Sonus brand. This is something we are considering for the future.
Time Out Croatia: How important is the Croatian market in terms of audience?
DOZ: It is a significant market and the audience that our unique sound caters to is growing every year. When we started in 2011, Croatia was still a EDM-focused country and it was not easy to attract many Croatians to our unique range of techno music. The local scene was very small and we had to work on it. I remember that we had at least 90% locals on our guest list every year so we could introduce our kind of music to them.
But now, as our brand has reached our neighbouring countries, we are starting to see more and more visitors from Croatia and the nearby Balkan countries.
Time Out Croatia: How has programming changed over the years, and when do you start planning and booking for next year's event?
DOZ: The programming has changed to accommodate the change in music trends and tastes across the world. We work with our booking department based in Germany to plan and sign artists in early September so that we can secure some of the leading acts in the industry for Sonus.
Time Out Croatia: Please tell us about Sonus 2023, and what plans you might have for the future beyond that.
DOZ: Sonus 2023 is a very special year for us as we are celebrating ten years at Zrće beach. We think that this may be the biggest year for Sonus yet and we have an artist roster that reflects our aspirations. We have a lot of new names in the line-up alongside big international headliners and local heroes. All of us are very much looking forward to celebrating our anniversary with our guests and artists.
Beyond 2023, we plan to invest in Novalija and the island of Pag to develop more accommodation and luxury facilities, and improve transport links so that the festival experience can be seamless and fun. As we develop and commit to improving the Sonus experience every year, we hope to keep this special festival atmosphere.