Bulgaria pulls plug on ‘noisy’ music festival in party resort

THE CHEAP drink and non-stop party atmosphere that has lured Britain’s young to Bulgaria’s Black Sea resorts is under threat from a “war on noise” that has seen nightclubs raided and a leading international DJ festival cancelled.

Over the weekend, Valeri Simeonov, the deputy prime minister, led a raiding team of police, and tax and health officials on two clubs at Sunny Beach, Bulgaria’s brashest Black Sea resort, arresting one DJ and seizing sound equipment amid claims the clubs had broken sound regulations.

Videos later posted on the internet showed the politician in action at one club as he and the police were subject to a barrage of booing, heckles and chants from partygoers angry that the plug had been pulled on the music.

Last year, around 281,000 Britons travelled to Bulgaria with many heading for the cut-price delights of the Black Sea coast. With a half-litre glass of beer costing less than £1 and an evening meal for two with wine for as little as £20, Bulgaria, has become a haven for people looking to live it up on little money.

But Mr Simeonov’s war on noise has cast a shadow over Sunny Beach.

Yesterday, the organisers of Sunny Beach’s Solar Summer 2017, an international electronic music festival that has attracted leading DJS such as Fatboy Slim and Pete Tong in the past, scrapped this year’s event because they fear the crusading minister might seize their equipment.

“We never imagined a situation in which the world’s top artists may be stopped and the equipment confiscated,” Ivan Donchev, one of the organisers, said on Bulgarian TV. “It will have a negative impact on the image of both Bulgaria and us as organisers.”

Mr Simeonov defiantly told reporters on Monday: “It is not the job of the deputy prime minister to conduct inspections, but disorder has been going on for some years, and the club owners have developed a sense of impunity, so I had to make an example of them.”