In just a few short years, Bear Stone Festival has carved out its place as one of Europe’s most exciting destinations for fans of stoner rock, psychedelic, and heavy music. Nestled in the stunning canyon of the Mrežnica River in Croatia, the festival offers a one-of-a-kind experience where music and nature merge to create something truly special.
Behind it all is Marin Lalić, a 28-year-old music enthusiast and festival organiser who turned his passion into a unique festival that’s drawing attention from rock and psych fans around the world.
We caught up with Marin to talk about the origins of Bear Stone Festival, the challenges of running an outdoor event in a remote location, and what fans can expect from this year’s event.
Tell us about Bear Stone’s beginnings, what made you decide to put on a festival focused on stoner rock music?
In mid-2021 me and my wife Ivana finished college in Zagreb, moved back to my hometown Slunj and took a step back to see how the whole COVID-19 situation would turn out. We were previously involved in the festival industry and were faced with all the challenges and unfamiliarities of what’s to come, as many people at that time were.
During that time I found myself saturated with the legendary bands I listened to for ages such as Metallica, Led Zeppelin, Slayer, etc. and started researching and discovering a whole world of phenomenal bands, some of them a bit older and some with only 1 or 2 albums released.
Through bands such as Fu Manchu, The Sword, 1000mods, Colour Haze, Elder and Russian Circles, I discovered a huge spectrum of genres that seem different at first, but clearly have a line that goes through them and ties them together. This all peaked with the mind-melting discovery of King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard who proved to be the perfect melting pot of different styles and who proved to me that this modern fusion of styles could have a big part in the future and the evolution of the genre.
Seeing how COVID-19 restrictions were starting to loosen and the world was coming back to normal, we started planning a festival that would incorporate all these subgenres and decided to do it on a beautiful piece of land that was in my family for ages. The site is located in a canyon of the river Mrežnica, one of the most pristine Croatian rivers that flows along the entire festival site and its camps, making it one of the most unique festival settings.
In the summer of 2022 we decided to organise a promo edition of the festival to announce our concept to our visitors. This edition was called the “Year Zero Edition” of Bear Stone Festival and it was limited to 1.000 visitors. It proved to be a great success and was “sold out” within a couple of days.
We were blown away by the feedback that followed and realised that this is something that was much needed on the scene. That was the start of Bear Stone Festival, the first Croatian outdoor festival dedicated to a variety of Psych Rock genres fused with breathtaking nature and psychedelic visuals.
What are the biggest challenges you’ve faced putting on the festival?
There are definitely challenges when it comes to organising a festival in an outdoor location, but I believe that the benefits greatly outweigh the difficulties and I’m always saying that our location is actually the main headliner of Bear Stone Festival. When you are there, it really seems like you are alone in the world as you can only see the hills and the forest that surround you, a feeling that is emphasised by the lack of signal which goes over the canyon terrain of the site.
This actually gives a great feeling of how the festival experience used to be and all the feedback we had regarding the lack of signal was immensely positive. No one is looking at their phones, checking their socials or emails. Everyone is living in the moment and I truly believe that this emphasises the entire festival experience. Even the mundane situations like finding your friends can lead to some unexpected encounters and side quests.
Our crew communicates by radios because otherwise it would be impossible to organise an event like this, but other than that, there are really no major obstacles. We have a very DIY mindset and so far we’ve managed to overcome all challenges posed by organising a festival in a relatively remote location such as this one. Luckily for us, the site of the festival only seems remote when you are there because in reality it’s just a 15 minute drive from the nearest town Slunj.
For our UK based audience, can you explain where the festival is and how people can get to it coming from abroad? What kind of transportation do you provide to festival goers?
Bear Stone Festival is located right in the heart of Croatia. We are 2 hours away from the Zagreb airport that is north of us, and basically the same distance away from the Rijeka airport on the west and the Zadar airport on the south. The Adriatic Sea is a 1.5 hour drive from the festival and the famous Plitvice Lakes are only 40 minutes away, so one can see quite a bit of Croatia during their stay at the festival.
The town nearest to the festival site is called Slunj and it’s well connected with the rest of Croatia by bus lines. During the festival we have a special bus line which connects Slunj with the festival site. We encourage our visitors to stay at the festival campsites for the best possible experience, but those that wish to stay in an apartment or a hotel in Slunj can still go back and forth with buses.
What top tips would you give to someone who was coming to Bear Stone for the first time?
We pride ourselves with having no overlaps between bands even though the 2025 lineup will have over 40 bands on 3 stages, so we like to save our visitors some time from doing the usual Excel sheet of timetables and plan which bands they are going to see.
Even though we usually have temperatures of around 35°C during the daytime accompanied by lovely sunshine, being so close to the river drops the temperature down quite a bit in the evenings, so I’d recommend having some warm clothing for when the sun goes down.
Also, due to the lack of internet at the festival site, only cash payments are possible, so we communicate to our visitors to visit ATMs in Slunj or anywhere else before they reach the festival. We also offer festival lockers located at our merch stand in the middle of the festival that visitors can use for safekeeping of any valuables.
Having been to Bear Stone I can honestly say it was one of the cleanest festivals I’ve ever been to, it was great to see people showing respect for the land. Can you tell us how you keep it so clean?
Thank you! We realise how fortunate we are to organise a festival at a site that is so beautiful and unique, so treating the nature that surrounds us with the utmost respect is at the very top of our priority list. Besides communicating this mindset to our visitors both through the social media and the festival booklet which visitors receive upon accreditation, we also have a team of local students called the “Eco Team” who work in shifts and constantly go up and down through the entire festival site picking up and cleaning anything that doesn’t belong there, leaving behind only beautiful landscape. It’s a great way for them to earn a bit of money during the summer while also educating them at the same time about respecting nature, so everyone wins.
A big part of the ecological approach are also our compost toilets that we built ourselves. At the first glance, these constructions look like small houses, but they are actually an elevated row of toilets that don’t use any chemicals whatsoever, only sawdust that draws the moisture from the waste making it a very sustainable solution. We also have a team of toilet cleaners that are basically 24 hour at the festival making sure that everyone has the best possible festival experience when it comes to basic necessities.
We are also handing out un-expanded bottles with caps to our visitors, to be used as portable ashtrays which proved to be a big success as there are no cigarette butts at the festival. We are very proud to see people recognising what we are trying to achieve and actively work towards accomplishing the same goal.
What have been your favourite festival moment so far?
There were a lot of beautiful moments for me both from a visitor’s point of view and as the organiser, but if I had to single out one, I’d say it was having Ben Ward, the singer of Orange Goblin taking some time in between songs to say thank you to me and the Bear Stone team for doing a great job and then dedicated the song “Time Travelling Blues” to us. This was during our 2023 edition which was the first “official” edition and it really meant the world to me to have a legend of the scene give us his seal of approval.
What would you be doing if you weren’t a festival organiser?
That’s a good question! I have a degree in Marketing, so maybe I would be in an office somewhere for a couple of years before trying my luck at starting my own agency. On the other hand, I got the event bug ever since I saw Metallica live in 2010 when I was 15 years old and was always drawn to what happens behind the stage, so I’m pretty sure I’d try to incorporate that into my life somehow
The festival does its best to support local Croatian bands, are there any you’d recommend to our readers to check out?
Absolutely! Even though I was aware of a couple of veterans of the scene before starting the festival such as She Loves Pablo, Seven That Spells and Stonebride, I was amazed by how many young bands reached out to us and have formed in the meantime. The scene is very vibrant and bands tend to lean on a fusion of genres more and more.
I’d definitely recommend a band called Nemeček that performed at last yea’rs festival. They create a wall of sound led by a traditional Croatian string instrument called “tambura” hooked up to a bunch of pedals while also singing in an archaic Croatian dialect creating the perfect blend of traditional and psychedelic.
I’d also recommend a very proggy and energetic band called Them Moose Rush who also performed at the festival last year and a beautifully psychedelic band called Peglica i Komandos that will join us this year at the festival.
How do you plan to expand the festival?
We are very careful about the number of people attending the festival. The outdoor setting has its own limitations when it comes to the terrain, but besides that, we can’t spread the people too thin while also being very careful not to overcrowd the beautiful, natural scenery.
Our current capacity is just over 2.000 visitors and even though there is a big part of the festival site that we plan to open as the festival gets bigger in the future, we would never go over a 5.000 people capacity simply because that would hurt everyone’s festival experience.
That number is very optimistic when taking into consideration some of the other festivals, but we truly believe we are building something unique over here. Of course, these are long term plans and we can always adjust things as we go in order to achieve organic growth both for our visitors and for us as the organisers.
Who are your dream festival headliners?
Like I said earlier, King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard are one of my favourite bands and I’d be over the moon to have them over. There are also legendary bands such as Mastodon, Clutch, The Sword and Down that would be amazing to have as a part of the lineup, but are probably a bit out of our league at the moment.
It’s very important for us not to view the lineup only in terms of the popularity of bands and to have the bands go from least popular to most popular, but rather to have a 3-dimensional view that also incorporates different genres and styles into that equation.
This approach is in the very fabric of Bear Stone Festival and with it we hope to earn the trust of our visitors in terms of their expectations to discover new bands and styles at the festival and not only seeing bands they have heard before.
What other festivals would you most like to attend?
Levitation and Austin Psych Fest are very high on my list and I’d definitely like to check them out. I think they have always pushed the expectations of their visitors while also being consistent year after year and I hope to achieve a version of that with Bear Stone Festival.
What are you most excited about for this year’s festival?
By increasing the number of bands from 30 to over 40, I’m really interested to see how the audience will react to having basically constant music playing most of the time and I’m also looking forward to experiencing the variety of subgenres we are trying to achieve with this year’s lineup. Of course, seeing bands such as Graveyard, A Place To Bury Strangers, Monolord, King Buffalo, Motorpsycho and Brant Bjork Trio is sure to be a delight.
Find out more or buy tickets for this year’s Bear stone festival via their website.
