Country Profile: The Balkans

"The mistake,” says Ruth Koleva of Sofia Live Festival, “is to talk about the Balkans as one market. It really isn't"

“The mistake,” says Ruth Koleva of Sofia Live Festival, “is to talk about the Balkans as one market. It really isn’t.” Ask anyone doing business in Southeast Europe and they’ll paint a similar picture.

Romania has scale, Serbia has decades of festival history, Croatia has tourism and geography, and Bulgaria, in Koleva’s words, “has a very active audience but is still fighting to become part of regular international routing rather than being treated as a standalone risk.