The Rave Scene of Bulgaria: Stamina

Written on 03.12.2021 by frekvencii.org Staff Content

Stamina is a party crew based in Sofia founded in 2017 that has its portfolio colored with various of techno monsters such as Stanislav Tolkachev, Codex Empire, Ancient Methods, Lag, Scalameriya, Remco Beekwilder, 999999999, Perc… should we continue?

They never sleep, the list continues with Seatoc Mass, VTSS, Regis and the latest upcoming rave with Hadone on 17th December in the Bulgarian alternative night-club Micro.

The line-ups are most frequently enriched by their co-founder resident DJs: Dimitar Georgiev who is based in Vienna, Cardioactive, Sllav and Markov, with some local support artists involved in contributing to warming up the raves that host variety of good underground artists from a very wide spectrum of techno.

Photo credits: Ivailo Danailov (@krivailo on Instagram)

We’ve had a short chat with Dimitar Georgiev, one of the founding members of Stamina.

How did it all begin? What is the mission of the Stamina raves, what is your trademark such as house rules, type of artists booked… what do you want to bring in Sofia?
Well, we started Stamina in 2017 with just three people, all of them called Dimitar (Kozhuharov, Yonkov, and myself).

The main thriving idea behind the project was to invite artists and DJs that haven’t played in Sofia yet, and give them complete freedom with the set lengths, so they can express themselves freely. For example, we’ve had Perc playing a 4 hour set, while 9×9 played for 8 hours straight, it’s like a trademark of ours.

We don’t have any rules and everyone is welcome to our parties. Our Resident Advisor statistics marked people from Italy, Germany, England and of course our neighbors Serbia, Macedonia and Greece.

What do you think could be improved in the Bulgarian and Balkan techno scene in general, and how?
We believe there should be more communication between the promoters. Not just about dates, but about the overall situation with the scene. Many promoters demand exclusivity with their artists and styles, which block other great possibilities for other promoters and the sounds they want to present to the audience.

The parties of Stamina play a very important role in the Balkan techno scene, as Sofia is very well connected and is a city where the old-school and sometimes obscurely good but underground techno that’s made for the best of loving ravers, well, it’s nurtured there and these guys are one of the main reason to put the city on the map in the first place.

The principle of their raves are very pure in nature and the groove and quality is always to be put first place, whilst delivering from many roads that can be found in groovy techno – from the acid 9×9 to dark techno legends such as Remco Beekwilder, and I’m sure as they go forward in the future, the portfolio and raves are going to become more and more fun with lots of good underground artists to have their sound played in the Balkans.

📆 View upcoming event: Stamina with Hadone (17th December, 2021)

Find & Follow Stamina:
– Facebook page
– Instagram page

Photo credits: Ivailo Danailov (@krivailo on Instagram)