Market Report: Serbia
Primary ticketing
Serbia’s market is dominated by national firms. Ticket Vision, otherwise known as tickets.rs, has sold millions of tickets since starting operations in 2005. The Belgrade-headquartered company offers tickets for a variety of events, including André Rieu’s November date.
Newcomer eFinity dubs itself the “exclusive ticketing partner of the biggest events in Serbia.” They deal almost exclusively in music and were primary partners for Ed Sheeran, Rammstein, and the three-day Lovefest.
GIGS TIX is celebrating 15 years in operation this year. The primary platform offers tickets for music, theatre, business, sports, and comedy.
Distribution of sales
While digital sales are popular, traditional box offices are used frequently as venues often sell directly to consumers. The major primary firms often also have physical outposts around cities.
Secondary ticketing
TicketSwap, StubHub, Ticombo, and Viagogo all have a presence in Serbia’s secondary market.
International/domestic splits & genres
Pop, classical, rock, and metal all find footing here. Popular traditional genres include regional and turbo-folk.
Cultural analysis
Persistent challenges continue to impact the national market, with a hard border separating it from the rest of its EU neighbours. The music scene is driven by national players, with multinational firms absent from the market. Plus, a lack of large venues is negatively impacting the choice of shows promoters can bring to the market.
The music scene is driven by national players, with multinational firms absent from the market.
“It is harder and harder to book international shows in Serbia without any government support and money to make the shows commercially successful,” says Charm Music’s Danilo Dimitrijević. “The crowd in Serbia is probably one of the best crowds to play in front of, as they are involved in the show and always happy to interact with artists,” he adds.
Taxes & charges
For cultural and musical performances, the reduced VAT rate is 10%, as opposed to the national 20%.
Country Profile: Serbia
EXIT Festival in Novi Sad marks its 25th anniversary next year and has most assuredly put Serbia on the international touring map. EXIT’s management calls itself “the most influential national promoter” in the country, which has “grown significantly over the years.” It is hard to argue against the enormous impact it has had.
Dmitry Zaretsky is co-founder of Honeycomb Live and has put on shows recently by international acts such as La Femme, Yungblud, and Bombay Bicycle Club, but by far the biggest was Ed Sheeran, who played Ušće Park in August 2024.
He says Serbia not being part of the EU makes it difficult for large trucks crossing the border with production equipment (with border checks being time-consuming), meaning many acts will skip the country. He also says there are few venues in between the 800-capacity and 20,000, so only small or huge acts can play there. However, he says the new 4,000-capacity Sava Centar (which opened in September 2024) is a much- needed addition, even if it is all seated.
“Most tours have been avoiding Serbia in the last two decades, but we feel it is very open to new music and new business.”
“Serbia is a great bridge between Hungary, Croatia, and Greece, especially in the summer,” Zaretsky says. “Most tours have been avoiding Serbia in the last two decades, but we feel it is very open to new music and new business.”
Sara Gigante, general manager at Charm Music Belgrade, agrees – to a point. “When I arrived in Serbia in 2018, the situation was a little bit healthier than nowadays, because Serbia was not so geopolitically isolated as today – meaning there was no hard border from all the sides,” she says.
She has brought acts like Dead Can Dance and Iron Maiden into the country but admits “as an independent promoter, it is becoming harder and harder” to operate. The government is more interested in sports and sports venues than music, and this is a constant challenge. “So we are left with two or three venues in total,” she says. “And with the wrong capacity.”
Zaretsky says Serbia has “one of the fastest growing economies in mainland Europe,” and ticket prices have gone up by 15-20% in recent years, but this is not pushing attendees away.
“Millennials are gradually representing a smaller percentage of event attendees, while Generation Z is starting to dominate – and soon, Generation Alpha will also come into play”
“Millennials are gradually representing a smaller percentage of event attendees, while Generation Z is starting to dominate – and soon, Generation Alpha will also come into play,” says EXIT management. “As a result, we can expect the rise of new artists, genres, formats, and standards.”
The biggest change, however, is the growing number of Russians, many leaving their home country in protest at its political system and the war in Ukraine, moving to Serbia.
“This has created a new trend, which is promoting Russian bands in Serbia for Russian audiences, with considerably higher ticket prices,” says Gigante. “Generally, the coming of the Russians has also encouraged us as promoters to raise the ticket prices for the acts that appeal to Russians.”
Key genres in Serbia include electronic music, long-standing rock and pop, hip-hop (which is rising sharply, with lots of local acts blending Balkan sounds with hip-hop beats), and a local genre called turbo-folk (which mixes traditional Serbian folk music with pop and electronica).
Arena Market: Serbia
Across Eastern Europe, more of Serbia’s neighbours are joining the EU’s free movement Schengen Area, meaning the country is one of only a few to have a hard border to cross for internationally touring artists and their fans.
“We’d need to offer more [competitive] fees to attract artists to come to Serbia and play, but it [highlights] the issue that the local market can’t really bear high ticket prices,” says Sara Gigante, general manager of promoter Charm Music Serbia. “The promoters are cautious to experiment with new trends, and this limits the audience’s access to new artists.”
Serbian audiences prefer well-established artists over newcomers, with the international-artist-dominated EXIT Festival being the major exception to the trend. Other popular genres include localised turbo-folk and trap music, Gigante says.
The major arena in Serbia is the recently renamed Belgrade Arena, formerly known as Štark Arena. The 18,386-capacity venue returned to its original name in April and will host Rod Stewart and André Rieu in 2024.
“The promoters are cautious to experiment with new trends, and this limits the audience’s access to new artists.”
A lack of available venues is disrupting promoters’ ability to bring international tours into the country, Gigante says. The vast majority of venues with capacities over 4,000 almost exclusively prioritise sport, severely limiting the availability for international artists to route their tours through the nation.
“The priority [is given to] the sports events, and the arena-level [music] shows are [only] happening between [sporting events] if the dates are free,” Gigante says. “This reflects negatively on promoting international arena-level [artists], as these shows need to be very well planned in advance. There’s less impact on local arena-level artists because they can be reasonably planned short-term and moved if the date has to be given to some sports delegation.”
Nonetheless, Serbian music industry leaders hope to continue attracting and hosting global artists, along with local newcomers.