Bulgarian Festival Cancelled Amid Nightclub Crackdown

Yalta Club, which has organised the SOLAR Summer festival at Sunny Beach's Cacao Beach Club for the past ten years, announced on Tuesday that the event will not go ahead this year because of the uncertainty caused by recent raids.

The organisers expressed concerns that the event might be compromised by the nocturnal raids led by deputy prime minister Valeri Simeonov, a member of the nationalist Patriotic Front coalition, who says he is waging a "war on noise" on the Black Sea coast.

Simeonov staged a series of raids on noisy discos in Sunny Beach at the weekend, and warned on Monday that he will extend his personal crackdown to other tourist resorts.

Popular DJ Stanislav Peev, known as DJ Stancho, was arrested at one club for refusing to hand over his personal laptop to police officers during Friday night's raids.

"We never imagined a situation in which a top artist could have his music stopped or equipment confiscated," the SOLAR Summer festival organisers said on their Facebook page.

"In the age of social networks, such news will spread with the speed of light around the whole world, which will affect both our image and Bulgaria's extremely badly," they added.

They apologised to fans who have already bought tickets, informing them they will reschedule planned parties with DJs Adam Beyer and Paco Osuna, who were part of SOLAR Summer's line-up, for later in the year in the capital Sofia.

SOLAR Summer is among Bulgaria's most popular dance music festivals, and has brought world-famous DJs such as Fatboy Slim, Armin van Buuren, Pete Tong, Tiesto, and many others to the beaches of the Black Sea.