Callatis Festival is the largest music and culture festival held in

Romania Romania ( ; ro, România ) is a country located at the crossroads of Central, Eastern, and Southeastern Europe. It borders Bulgaria to the south, Ukraine to the north, Hungary to the west, Serbia to the southwest, Moldova to the east, a ...

Location

The festival is held on a barge that is docked at Mangalia Marina. The barge consists of a huge stage and a very large backstage area, enough to hold over 200 people. The spectators sit on stairs across the harbor, about away from the stage.

History

The Callatis Festival began in 1999 and has expanded ever since.

Dates

The Callatis Festival is held every summer between 8 and 15 August. The main part of the festival (the concerts on the stage) takes begins at 21:00 and ends after midnight. This part of the festival is aired live on TVR 2 and TVR International.

Hosts

From 1999 to 2003, the hosts of the Callatis Festival changed every year. Since 2004, the organizers have opted for continuity, so the permanent festival hosts are Gabriel Cotabiță and

Sorana Belciu Sorana may refer to: *Sorana (Pescia), a village in Pistoia, Tuscany, Italy **Sorana bean, a type of cannellini bean grown in Sorana * Sorana Cîrstea (born 1990), Romanian tennis player *Sorana Păcurar (better known as only Sorana) Romanian sing ...

Callatis Club Callatis Club is a post-festival show aired every year during the Callatis Festival on the Romanian TV channel TVR 2. The show was hosted in 2006 by Cătălin Măruță, and by Leonard Miron in 2008 and most of the singers who performed on the stag ...

, the after-show of the festival, was hosted in 2006 by Cătălin Măruță. In 2006, Sorana Belciu was replaced by two young presenters selected in the Miss Diaspora contest. After a year's break, Callatis Club returned to Romanian Television in 2008, presented by

Leonard Miron Leonard Miron (born April 11, 1969) is a Romanian television and radio presenter and journalist and works for Romanian National Television (''Televiziunea Română''). He was born in Galaţi, Romania but was brought up in Piteşti and graduated f ...

Schedule

Every year the Callatis Festival has themed nights. There is

Europa Top Hit Callatis Festival is the largest music and culture festival held in Romania. Location The festival is held on a barge that is docked at Mangalia Marina. The barge consists of a huge stage and a very large backstage area, enough to hold over 200 ...

night where all the major Romanian music stars gather,

folk music Folk music is a music genre that includes traditional folk music and the contemporary genre that evolved from the former during the 20th-century folk revival. Some types of folk music may be called world music. Traditional folk music has ...

night, and Miss Diaspora night where Romanian girls living in foreign countries compete with each other in a beauty contest.

Foreign artists

Al Bano came to the festival in 2003 and

Panjabi MC Rajinder Singh Rai ( Punjabi: ਰਜਿੰਦਰ ਸਿੰਘ), better known by his stage name Panjabi MC, is a British-Indian recording artist, rapper, producer and DJ. He is best known for the worldwide 2002 bhangra hit "Mundian To Bach Ke ...

in 2004. In 2005, the big foreign star at the festival was

In-Grid Ingrid Alberini (born 11 September 1978), known by her stage name In-Grid, is an Italian dancer and singer-songwriter. Her 2003 club song "Tu es foutu", (English title: "You Promised Me"), charted in several European countries, Australia, Latin A ...

, the Italian chanteuse and, in 2006, Vaya con Dios performed at the festival. Their show was viewed by about 40,000 people on location, and more than a million live on TV. The band brought 600 pounds of equipment for the 20 songs they performed on stage.

Scandals

In 2005, Europa FM was criticised by

show host Cătălin Măruță because of the radio station's motto: "A radio for millions of people". He stated that this motto did not actually reflect the station's target. In 2006, singer Cream started an argument with host Gabriel Cotabiță because she was on the festival's program but did not actually appear on stage.

Maria Dragomiroiu Maria may refer to: People * Mary, mother of Jesus * Maria (given name), a popular given name in many languages Place names Extraterrestrial *170 Maria, a Main belt S-type asteroid discovered in 1877 * Lunar maria (plural of ''mare''), large, ...

, Mihai Trăistariu, Simplu and Morandi have publicly expressed their disgust regarding the fact that they performed live on stage but their show was not aired on TV due to a mid-show commercial break. Allegedly, they had not been told that their performance would not be aired on TV.

References

External links

The Callatis Festival on mangalia.ro
(in Romanian) {{coord missing, Constanța County Mangalia Music festivals in Romania Tourist attractions in Constanța County Summer events in Romania