Europe News
Serbian music festival Exit closes
Jul 12, 2009, 23:20 GMT
Belgrade - British ska punk group Madness closed Exit, the largest music festival in Serbia and the Balkans, on Sunday night.
Tens of thousands of fans gathered at the four-day Exit festival, which featured some 500 performers on 25 stages connected by cobbled streets and tunnels at the Petrovaradin fortress near the northern city of Novi Sad.
The unofficial star of this year's festival, Moby, gathered some 40,000 people for his act - the biggest crowd since the beginning of the festival in 2000.
Organizers said around 200,000 people attended this year's Exit that featured stars such as British pop sensation Lily Allen, Patti Smith, Manic Street Preachers and many others.
Although Exit has generally avoided any major problems, this year one British fan was diagnosed with swine flu during the festival and another Briton fell from the 10-metre high walls of the fortress and died.
Serbian police also arrested dozens of people on drug charges and broke up a couple of fights.
Exit grew from a protest against the rule of the late Slobodan Milosevic in 2000 into the biggest music event in the region with its offerings from a variety of musical genres from rock and rap to dance, drum'n'bass, electronic and experimental.
Throughout the years stars such as Massive Attack, Franz Ferdinand, Billy Idol, Morrissey, The Cult, The Beastie Boys, Moloko, Garbage and The Cardigans have performed.
Novi Sad is 80 kilometres north-west of Belgrade.
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