All my pessimism about the end of Bulgarian domestic cultural tourism, about the indifference of the young people to classical culture and arts totally evaporated in the night of 26th of September. In Plovdiv, more than 35 galleries and museums opened their doors till 3 AM. Free events – music concerts, dances, art presentations attracted thousands of people. To the point there were more people on the streets during the night than the next morning. The Old Town of Plovdiv became an endless art crawl and most of the visitors were young – less than 30 years old. They were making pictures in museums, where normally this is prohibited, laying on the floor of the Ethnographic museum, arguing about art in pubs and restaurants. Some of them came from other cities and stayed for the night at friends’ houses or inexpensive hotels. Some of them didn’t even sleep and took the back bus to their cities the next morning.
I kept asking myself why was such a big attendance to the event. And the answer is very clear – smart event date choice (on the weekend before the Plovdiv International Fair opening) and great advertising – mainly on the Internet. Hence the young public from all over Bulgaria. How the municipality of Plovdiv made advertising to the tour operators so there were a lot of foreign tourists in the streets speaking English, German, Russian and Spanish, I don’t know, but they did it right.
Once again, congratulations for the great event and keep the good work.
