Exit Festival Tips - Tickets, Drinks, Getting Around, Money

Here’s some Exit Festival tips that we picked up from attending the festival that may well be useful to future attendees!

Exit Festival tickets

You will most likely have pre-bought your tickets to the Exit Festival, and will now be armed with a booking print-out. You will need to exchange this for a proper Exit Festival pass the first day you attend. This booth isn’t especially near any entrance to the Fortress – don’t make the mistake (like we did) of going to the entrance, being turned away and having to troop all the way back down. Pick up your Festival pass early.

Don’t lose your pass, and remember to take it with you each day – no pass equals no entry. Furthermore, once you’re inside the Festival for the day, you can’t leave and then come in again. So once you’re in for the day, you’re in it for the long haul!

Exit Festival drinks tokens & drinks

Once inside the Exit Festival, you’ll need to buy tokens to exchange for drinks. The drinks available within the Festival are beer, wine, water and soft drinks/energy drinks. If there’s any number of you – or if you’re a big beer drinker – go for a six-pack token at 800 Dinars, as this means you get one beer free. Each individual beer token is 200 Dinars. [Note: 2009 prices.]

Having said that, the drinks on offer aren’t really all that good. The beer that is [was?] exclusively sold at the festival is Tuborg, a Danish brand that’s brewed locally. It tasted very watered down at the festival, unfortunately. The wine also got a thumbs down for us, though mixing it with fruit juice apparently got some better results.

Portaloos

Like many a festival, portaloos are the only available option for all your bathroom breaks. There were plenty of them everywhere the Festival site, and they’re as to be expected for a festival with several tens of thousands of people attending each night.

The usual tips apply – take your own tissue paper and some anti-bacterial hand gel (this probably applies more to the ladies amongst us rather than the boys).

What I hadn’t thought of, however, was the complications of using a portaloo during a night-time festival. Portaloos don’t have a lighting system, and night-time = proper dark. Going to the loo at Exit therefore meant going to the loo in pitch blackness. Either find a bunch of portaloos near a streetlight (there were some, here and there) or bring your own little torch.

Getting around Novi Sad

Get a taxi everywhere. Seriously. Novi Sad does have an extensive bus system, but as taxis are so cheap you may as well take them instead.

A taxi from our flat to the Festival cost, on average, 200 Dinars including tip, which is £2. Split that two, three or even four ways as we sometimes did, and that’s…well, not very much.

Make sure to take proper licensed taxis – these are generally the ones that have full taxi livery (logos, telephone numbers etc) on their cars. We saw a number of (rather old) cars that had simply attached some kind of taxi light to their top. I don’t believe such a taxis would be dangerous, but they may charge you extra. If you’re in doubt, ask how much the fare will be before you get in. And make sure they turn on their meter!

Obtaining Serbian Dinars…and getting rid of them

You won’t be able to obtain Serbian Dinars before you enter Serbia, but that’s not too much of a problem – just head to an ATM machine once you get there and withdraw some cash. Alternatively, take your foreign currency (Euros are probably the best) and go to one of the numerous money exchange offices dotted around Novi Sad.

If you’re entering the country by coach, petrol stations will normally have ATM machines and some sort of small money exhange facility.

But beware! In the same way you can’t get Dinars before you enter Serbia, you won’t be able to get rid of any leftover ones once you leave! Do remember to exchange them before you leave the country, therefore. If you’re leaving by train or bus, there is an exchange office right by these stations in Novi Sad. If you’re travelling by bus, remember to keep a little bit back (approximately 60 Dinars) to pay for any luggage you store in the hold.