International Children’s Festival in Šibenik

The undoubted peculiarity of Croatian culture and a kind of trademark of Šibenik is the International Children's Festival.  During June until July th, Šibenik  becomes a city of children  for the 65th time, and celebrates children's imagination and creativity.

This year, too, Šibenik will host the children of the world, giving its streets to children's creativity and remind all its visitors how precious the world of children's play, joy and goodness is. During the festival days, Šibenik is one big open stage, a place of exciting meeting of poets and children. In numerous artistic and creative forms on the city streets and squares meet the whole world, representatives of cultures from all continents. Visitors can expect more than 200 performers from 9 countries around the world. This year, a record 53 workshops were registered, which will be attended by more than 1000 children.

The festival has three basic programmes: a festival of domestic and international children’s ensembles, the workshop programme directly and publicly involving children in the act of creation, and the educational part where a symposium addresses issues such as aesthetic education of children. To those who never forget their playful side and even more so to those who have completely forgotten it, Šibenik should be an inevitable destination.

The concept and humanitarian goals of the Festival have the full support of UNICEF and UNESCO and the constant patronage of the President of the Republic of Croatia.

The opening ceremony begins with the raising of the festival flag on the summer stage between the Cathedral of St. James and the City Hall. The ceremonial performance of the children's musical "The Bird with Miraculous Wings" will bring as many as 53 children from Šibenik to the stage in front of the HNK Šibenik.

One of the most anticipated moments is certainly the finale of the festival, which transforms the Šibenik waterfront into a stage rarely seen, not only in Croatia, but also in this part of Europe. With the performance Sky-Earth-Sea by the world-famous Spanish company Carros de Foc, three gigantic marionettes (a horse, an eagle and divers) will parade along the Šibenik waterfront.

The International Children's Festival in Šibenik hosted numerous artists from all over the world who dedicate their talent to children through play and laughter, plays, workshops, performances, art installations, visual arts, music and everything in which imagination reigns and joy triumphs.