The nineteenth Weekend fills the old tobacco factory in Rovinj with four days of talks across eight tracks, from media and tech to finance and energy. One ticket covers everything, the town is full that week, and the evenings on the harbour are half the reason people come back.
Checked: 3 September 2026
Weekend Media Festival, which everyone in Croatia simply calls Weekend, returns to Rovinj from Thursday 24 to Sunday 27 September 2026 for its nineteenth edition. The venue is the same as always: the Ex TDR, the former tobacco factory on the harbour, whose brick halls hold the stages, the exhibitors and the long bar that keeps the conversations going after the last panel. It started in 2008 as a meeting of the region's media and advertising people; in 2026 it is the largest business conference in this part of Europe, with four days of talks across eight tracks and several thousand visitors in a town of thirteen thousand.
Eight festivals under one roof
The 2026 programme is built as eight sub-festivals running in parallel: media, tech, finance, HR, health, education, investment and energy. A single Weekend.19 ticket gives access to all of them, so the practical question is not what to buy but which hall to sit in at eleven. Announced speakers include Mate Rimac, the founder of Rimac and Bugatti Rimac, the London physician and entrepreneur Jack Kreindler, Ulrik Haagerup, the Danish journalist behind the Constructive Institute, Emil Tedeschi of Atlantic Grupa and Miran Pavić of Telegram Media Group. The full timetable appears on weekend.hr in the weeks before the start, and it changes until the last day.
How the four days work
- Thursday: registration, the opening panels and the first evening on the harbour. Arrive by early afternoon, the queue at the entrance is longest at nine.
- Friday and Saturday: the dense days, parallel sessions from morning to early evening, then the parties that the festival is as famous for as its panels.
- Sunday: a shorter programme and the departure. Leave time for the old town: Grisia, the church of St Euphemia and a last coffee on the Valdibora side.
Rovinj in festival week
Late September is the best-kept secret of the Istrian calendar: the sea still has 22 to 23 degrees, the restaurants are open, and the August crowds are gone. The exception is exactly this week, when the town's hotels fill with badge-wearing visitors and prices follow. If you are not coming for the festival, choose another week. If you are, book now and consider the villages inland; the drive from Bale or Kanfanar takes a quarter of an hour, and parking at the Ex TDR is easier from that direction than from the centre. The festival runs a shuttle between the venue and the larger hotels, and everything else in Rovinj is on foot.
Frequently asked questions
- Is Weekend only for people who work in media?
- It started that way in 2008, but the 2026 programme has eight tracks, and finance, health, education and energy draw as many people as the media panels. Anyone can buy a ticket.
- Where do I stay if Rovinj is full?
- Bale, Kanfanar and Vrsar are fifteen to twenty minutes by car, Poreč and Pula about forty. Book before mid-September, the festival week is the last full week of the Istrian season.
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