EXIT Festival - photo gallery

It might be an unexpected place to have launched a huge multi-faceted, multi-cultural festival, but for the last 12 years the pretty town of Novisad in Serbia has played host to one of Europe's biggest and most successful festivals, Exit.  

Held in a centuries old fortress in the centre of the historic town, the event covers four days, welcomes over 200,000 music fans from across the world and sees line ups that cover metal, rock, dance, indie, folk, reggae and much that falls between those cracks.

But those facts and figures just don't do the festival justice and, in fact, we at Pulse Radio would find it hard to criticise anything about Exit.  Incredibly well organised considering its size, many people we met whilst wending our way around the ancient fortress's hidden alleys, stages, galleries, bars and parties have been regulars for years, coming from as far as Australia to be a part of this epic musical effort.  

Rather than diluting the flavour of the festival, the span of its line up just added to the incredible atmosphere that kicks in from the first note on the main stage to the final beat echoing around the dance arena come 8am.  

With a line up that took in Duran Duran, Erykah Badu, Pariah, Guns N Roses, Richie Hawtin (who played to crowds as far as the eye could see), Hatebreed, Space Dimension Controller, Little Dragon and so many more, it was an example of quality easily matching quantity set in a stunning space.

From a dance music fan's perspective, witnessing thousands of revellers losing it to New Order playing Blue Monday on the Friday night, George Fitzgerald proudly dropping his very own 'Child' on the Happy Novisad stage or Luciano bringing in Gotye's worldwide smash, 'Somebody I Used To Know' in the dance arena as the sun came up were just some of the many highlights of Exit this year.  

But dance music is just one aspect of this four day party and the sound in each of the arenas is by the far loudest and clearest we've heard at any gathering.  

As we found out, Exit is much more than just about the music - it's the scale of the fortress, the spirit of the people, the astounding acoustics, the level of detail on each and every stage and the scope of the line up which make Exit Festival an event that's been indellibly inked into Pulse's party diary for 2013.

One final word of advice however; it's probably worth expending all your energy at the festival itself as many of the unofficial after parties aren't worth the effort and when you've got scenes like this to take in, what's stopping you!  Here's just a small flavour of how it all went down and for more information on Exit Festival, head here.

Listen to Luciano on Pulse Radio