THANK YOU, THANK YOU & THANK YOU! It was OUT OF THIS WORLD! Festival was SOLD OUT, people coming from 5 continents giving their energy to the sun, sea and to each other. Our pictures and videos can only give you a bit of this atmosphere. For the rest you will need to come next year. It is our 5th anniversary. Period.

For the 4th consecutive year Croatian Summer Salsa Festival has risen up to the expectations. That is at least what we hear from other people, read from the comments you send us or from the comments on the Facebook or internet forums. Reading those, each year we think ourselves more and more proud to be a host to such a wonderful audience who basically ARE THE FESTIVAL.

Yes, of course, as it is in every big or small organization, there have been some problems along the way. Some we did handle without nobody noticing, some we could not hide as either were last minute changes we could do nothing about (artists cancellation) or were not in our abilities but the audience were affected (air conditioning in some hotel halls). Anyway, with a little help from our friends (thank you Ariel, Adri and R.elle !) we have done our best.

So, before the small overview of the festival activities I would like to thank following people. Not to write long thank you essays, each of them will know why they are special to us.

Volunteer CREW (Tena, Lea, Renata, Ana Marija, Marija, Ivana, Helena, Đurđica, Dijana, Josipa, Irena, Ljiljana, Martina, Walter, Saša, Danijel, Aleš, Miro, Miloš, Kiki), Sassch, Igor J., Andrea S., Lili, Rosemarie, Alan, Nadja, Ana K., Maja and Robi. I hope I did not forget anybody ;)

And at last but not least I wish to send BIG THANK YOU to the organization team of Los Mamberos who are my dear friends and have made this festival possible. We share many experiences who at the end are making us better people.

Daniela, Dinka, Dado, Danijel & Željka + special member Ani !

WORKSHOPS

As you all know we have compiled a great workshop schedule giving you interesting ideas for your future dance education or simply having fun. It is completely up to you to take it from this point. We hope you enjoyed our picks and we invite you to send us comments so we can improve even more.

Welcome party

Indeed one of the hottest parties at the festival. Many many people, air conditioning not at its highest, BUT we had lot of fun on 2 floors, one for Cuban dancing people and other for mambo and line salsa. Moderation for show and instructors presentation done by our MC Dinka and for the 1st time, the great star itself, Farid from Salsa Conga! Shows performances by Latina Blanca (Serbia), Zsuzsa Bojte (Hungary), Daniel and Edyta (Poland) & Donantes de Rumba (Czech Republic and Tenerife) were followed by instructors presentations.

Of course international instructors were shining in their best, BUT, we would like to highlight this years appearances by extra 4 couples of Croatian instructors who, together with 3 couples from Los Mamberos Team, have added their passion and energy to this event and have contributed to it with additional quality. The party was orchestrated by our great great DJ's: Ariel & Ronny (Cuba in the house !) and Kalix & Mojito (mambo, old school salsa, salsa romantica). Great work guys!

Grande fiesta - open air LIVE MERCADONEGRO CONCERT !

THE best party of the festival, POOL PARTY excluded! There is simply something different when you dance in open air. Add to this a concert of most probably best salsa band in Europe AND wooden floor put outside just for the dancers AND add to that 1000 people dancing on the plaza of the maybe most beautiful city on Adriatic, you will get UNIQUE experience, not just the party! Enough said except that the shows were spectacular!

Saturday night party

Hotel Eden was again host to our Saturday GALA party. Its terrace was again a perfect set for the Saturdays shows and 2 rooms gave the possibilities to play music for both Cuban and line salsa dancers. Again, Farid and Dinka have done fun and nice moderation and shows were indeed beautiful. The party lasted until 4 hours a.m. although it seemed it could have continued more for at least 1 more hour, BUT, Sunday was a day for the POOL PARTY and everybody knew that.

Sunday pool party

We were really afraid of what is going to happen that day. We needed to transfer 1000 people to and from the island. We have learned from previous year and we rented a ferry for the return back! Incredible but whoever was last year on a pool party knew that this was perfect solution. And it was, the people were transffered from the party really painless. And what about the party!?!! We would like that pictures say for themselves. As for the next year we will need a much bigger island :)

MORE PICTURES WILL BE ADDED ONLINE TO OUR GALLERY VERY SOON!

Sunday chillout party

Again 2 floors for various dancing people, but this time in beautiful Hotel Park with great view on the city of Rovinj and a large pool on terrace. Indeed, air conditioning was at first bad in one of the rooms but that is something we need to work on for the next year. The party lasted until 3 a.m.and again our DJ's have done a great job!

Again, THANK YOU for helping us create one more UNIQUE & UNFORGETTABLE event with the wonderful atmosphere. We invite You to join us on our special 5th anniversary edition in summer 2009. Our aim is to offer some additional content to the festival which will enrich both You and us with some more UNIQUE experiences!

SALUDOS PARA TODOS!

Vladimir Semencic

Festival Director