In 2008, 1,300 noblemen came to visit the first event organised by the founders Tomo Ricov and Boris Kovaček at the revived place in Rovinj. They named it the Weekend Media Festival and it turned out to be a stunner!

This year’s Weekend Media Festival repeated the successful story of combining business and pleasure, but the number of visitors has increased to the impressive 4000. Lecturers from all over the world came to tell the visitors about the newest market changes as well as the business opportunities and social media trends. The event was opened by the knight Nicolas Kfuri who received praise for his lecture about the changes social media brought to marketing. The kingdom of Nestlé sent their knight Tom Buday, and his lecture about the consumer engagement in the digital world was widely accepted.

Interesting faces and names provided the visitors with refreshing themes while well-known classic fairy-tale characters strolled up and down the Weekend place.

No visitor could walk by without noticing the lovely Snow Whites adorning the event.

There were also the favourite dwarfs to be seen:

Sleepy

Grumpy

Bashful

Happy

Sneezy

Doc

Dopey (on the left)

The princes who ruled the whole event showed their power by bewitching the crowd in no time:

Tomo Ricov (his impeccable talent for music shook the party lads and gals who seemed glued to the dance floor)

Boris Kovaček (the Weekend’s director and producer)

Nikola Vrdoljak (the program director and Gingernet CEO kicked it with the Croatia Inc. Goes digital panel discussion)

Branimir Brkljač (one of the most interesting lectures at the Weekend – he really got me with his Wilderness of Media Reality!)

Davor Runje (the co-founder of Drap won the „There’s no Problem That We Can’t Fix, ‘Cause We Can Do it in the Mix!“ prize at the SoMo Fighter award ceremony)

Davor Bruketa (from Bruketa&Žinić introduced The Art of Impossible – Business in the Regionat the BalCannes stage)

Sergej Trifunovic and Moondance Big Band

It sure wouldn’t be a fairy-tale without a competition for proud knights. SoMo Fighter attracted many of them to fight for the crown in the realm of social media. The most impressive achievement was presented by the Serbian agency Webtise which won the viral blockbuster award. Their You Tube video “Wedding” about the last year’s LGBT pride parade in Belgrade reached over 200,000 views in only two days and became a hot Facebook and Twitter topic.

Other winners include:

SoMo Twit winner: HBO Adria
SoMo Gram winner: Colours of Istria
SoMo Community manager winner: Mila Perovic for HBO Adria

SoMo blog winner: Neuralab
SoMo social media mix: Drap (Zagreb) with Kraš
Check out SoMo Fighter mobile awards here.

The Urban Belgrade scene closed this year’s Weekend with the extra cool Sergej Trifunovic and Moondance Big Band.

As you know, every fairy-tale has its own evil witch. But it was difficult to find one at the Weekend Media Festival. But just when I thought that I won’t have any and that I’m going to have to give up on the story, I reached into my pocket and voilà, there it was! My pocket was empty and it dawned on me that the evil witch had taken it all! The meals and drinks on the energizing days in Rovinj were quite costly. Was it worth it? Absolutely! I’ll give the evil witch another chance to win her share same time next year.

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This post was written by Martina Vuksan: follow her on Twitter, connect on LinkedIn or Facebook.

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