The end of summer is knocking on the window, however this did not stop us to pop around Plovdiv on 11th and 12th of October and make a cultural event! All additions Shak tuk-tam have something in common, but also every festival has something new to bring to the scene, and every city we visit also has it’s unique character and culture.

During our events in June and September in local Varna, we quite casual and cozy.  Then when we visited Dobrich, we were a bit nervous doing our first mini-fest in another town, however we soon realized that there is no reason to worry – we spent two amazing and exciting days! While in Burgas, we tested if we could be at two locations at the same time and the experiment turned out very succesfully!

 

Shak tuk-tam Plovdiv – an incredible experience we won’t easily forget

After a few months of our mini fest tour we were quite excited to see what out next destination will bring us! It turned out that, Plovdiv is not only an European Capital of Culture for 2019, but it also has quite youthful and welcoming environment. During our skate and roller lessons we had an unexpected amount of participant, as well as in the following tourment we held.

The table football tournament was spectacular and there were new people comming in to watch  and participate all the time. The games we prepared as well as the slackline also attracted a large amount of people – not only fans, but also newbies that wanted to have their first try. The location of our graffiti set was amazing – we had enough space to put big canvas were artists could draw as much as they want! We also managed to do some serveys about volunteering and volunteery services with some of the visitors of the festival. We even managed to take some interviews with them.

The programme – new faces and more activities

For the first time during Shak tuk-tam the programme was joined not only by the orgnizations and clubs, but also individual participants. Vanya (one of the first enthusiasts who wished to volunteer at the vest) travelled from Sofia and helped us organize K-pop dance workshops. We met Harry in Plovdiv who played a bit of Freestly Football – he just made us speachless by showing us the well know sport in a completely new light.

We were pleasently surprised by a whole gang of roller skaters in Plovdiv! Without any previous arrangements, these people came, brought ramps and facilities and they created a wonderful terrain for rolling, that we all took an advantage of! Respect boys! That’s deffinately the spirit we wanted to gather from the very beginning of the festival. Shak tuk-tam is a non-commercial event that welcomes everybody. However, we are extremely happy when people actually show initiative, they join the fest with what they love to do and they support our activities, without anyone asking them to do so. The desire to be a part of some good intiative and be excited to help out – this is what we want to inspire in young people that come to our events!

Gratitute and a look ahead

While speaking on this topic it’s important to give a shout out to Nenko who helped us with many tasks before we came to Plovdiv, and later during the festival he played some awesome music! On the last evening Nenko organized an unforgetablle event Bas Naroden and friend, that actually evolved further into a street jam session, combining dub, reggae and beautiful folklore music. We are so greatful and we are expecting future meetings and colaborations in the future!

We also want to say Thank You to the Municipality of Plovdiv, Association “Plovdiv – European capital of culture 2019“, Sports school “Vasil Levski” and all of our other partners that supported the youth festival – part of the project “Be a volunteer! Change the world”

And at the end Thank YOU – the biggest one – to all of the team of “Shak tuk-tam”! Without them, none of these 5 additions would’ve not happened! People, you are wonderful!

What’s next?

We can officially announce that we have a confirmed date and location for the next edition of the festival! Although summer has ended and we won’t be outdoors, the place we chose it’s special and you can be sure that none of the previous activities will be missed! Expect a wild programs with lots of diversity during Shak tuk-tam Sofia 22-23th of November! We will see you soon!