Dear citizens and guests of Zagreb!

In June, summer descends upon our city and brings us a host of events and an increasing number of foreign and domestic visitors. With the arrival of warm weather, the city turns into a popular tourist hub, while the ever more interesting and diverse tourist offer gives it a competitive edge.

This month is laden with festivals, mostly musical ones. Among others, there is the unique and memorable INmusic Festival, the biggest music festival in Croatia. Every year, it attracts more than 50,000 visitors to our beautiful “Zagreb Sea” – Jarun Lake. This year’s special attraction is a temporary but quite impressive and unique replica of Tesla’s tower. Built for the first time ever anywhere in the world this structurally accurate replica of the tower is bound to attract the attention of the global public. The INmusic Festival dedicates this unique project to two extremely talented people who left a permanent mark on humanity – Nikola Tesla and David Bowie. Apart from the INmusic Festival, you can also visit Reflektor, Zagreb’s new art and music boutique festival with an impressive programme of events – exhibitions, literary evenings, plays and after parties. Another big event vying for visitors’ attention is Zagreb Calling 2016, which is to be held at Zagreb’s favourite open air concert venue – Šalata Stadium.

The 16^th International Fireworks Festival will light up the skies above Zagreb. The best and most imaginative globally renowned pyrotechnics experts from Italy, Slovenia and Croatia will gather at Bundek Lake for the 16^th time and use their skills to create memorable fireworks displays, while a programme of musical performances will be put together to enhance the visual delights.

Towards the end of the month, visitors can look forward to one of the most attractive film festivals in the region – Fantastic Zagreb. To the greatest delight of numerous fans of fantasy and similar genres, this year’s edition of the festival will be more interesting than ever. It will feature screenings at the cinemas Europa, CineStar Zagreb at Branimir Centar, and the fantastic Tuškanac summer stage. Visitors can also look forward to two fantastic nights at the end of the festival at Zagreb’s Medvedgrad fort. One can also partake in the Water Balloon Challenge – a festival of fun that will take place on the western banks of Jarun Lake and will include three large water balloon fights, hot air balloon flights, a beach bar and an open air programme, crab-burgers, the release of sky-lanterns, beer pong and numerous concerts.

One thing is for sure, June truly seems too short to squeeze in all the events that will take place this month in our beautiful city.

Yours sincerely,

Milan Bandić

Mayor of Zagreb