Guests often arrive in Pirovac assuming the town is somewhere you sleep and eat, and that anything worth attending happens in Šibenik or Split. For most of the year that is fair enough. In August it is quite wrong.
Pirovac runs its own summer programme, Lito u Pirovcu, and it goes on until 13 September. Nearly all of it happens either in the town centre or on Rudina square, which means that for anyone staying with us it is a walk rather than a drive, and nobody has to draw straws over who stays sober.
Here is what is still to come.
The rest of the programme
Wednesday 5 August, 21:00, town centre. Dalmatino and Amigosi, followed by fireworks. This is the big one. The fifth of August is Victory Day, a national holiday, so the town is busy and in a good mood well before the music starts. Worth knowing in advance: shops and offices keep holiday hours, so do your shopping the day before.
Friday 7 August, 21:00, Kašić. Kašićka fešta, with Giuliano and Diktatori. Kašić is the neighbouring settlement, a few minutes up the road.
Saturday 8 August, 21:00, Rudina square. Pirovačka svadba, the Pirovac wedding. A staged reenactment of a traditional local wedding, costumes and all. It is the most distinctive thing in the whole calendar and the one we would send you to if you only had one free evening. No English commentary, but you will not need any.
Wednesday 12 August, 21:00, town centre. The second Ribarska fešta of the summer, the fishermen’s feast, with Klapa Cambi and Dišpet. Grilled fish, long tables, and klapa singing, which is the traditional Dalmatian close-harmony style sung without instruments. If you have never heard it live, this is the evening to fix that.
Saturday 22 August, 21:00, town centre. Pirovačka fešta, with Alen Nižetić and Elixir. The town’s own night, and the last of the big August events.
Sunday 13 September, 17:00, the olive groves. Piknik u masliniku, a picnic among the olive trees, and the last event of the season. An earlier start and a gentler affair than the August feasts, which is rather the point of September here.
Things that catch visitors out
Everything starts at 21:00. This is not a misprint and it is not optimistic scheduling. Dalmatian summer evenings genuinely begin when the heat lets go, and a concert billed for nine o’clock will not have finished by eleven. Feed the children first, or feed them at the fešta, but do not plan on an early night.
A fešta is not a ticketed festival. It is closer to a village party that happens to have a stage: food stalls, long tables, several generations of the same family at each one, and music until late. You wander in. There is no wristband and no queue.
Programmes move. Dates get shifted for weather or for reasons nobody explains. The town publishes the current version at visitpirovac.hr, and it is worth a look the morning of, especially if you are driving in from elsewhere.
Worth the short drive
Šibenik, St Michael’s Fortress, about twenty-five minutes away. Watching a concert from inside a fortress above the old town is one of the better things you can do in this part of Croatia. Still to come in August: a Prince tribute on the 13th, Nina Badrić on the 20th, a theatre piece with Enis Bešlagić on the 24th, Alan Hržica on the 26th and 4 Tenora on the 27th. Wilco close the season on 3 September, but that one has already sold out, so do not build an evening around it without a ticket in hand.
Tisno, about ten minutes south, hosts Dimensions Festival from 27 to 31 August at The Garden Resort. Whether that is a draw or a warning depends entirely on you. If you are coming for it, the site opens at 11:30 on Thursday the 27th. If you are not, be aware that the roads around Tisno and the Murter bridge get considerably busier that week, and plan any airport runs with room to spare.
The short version
If you are here in early August, go to the wedding on the 8th and the fishermen’s feast on the 12th. If you are here late in the month, the 22nd is the town’s own night. And if you have come in September for the quiet, the olive grove picnic on the 13th is a good way to close the season out.
All of it is a few minutes’ walk from the house. For the daytime half of the trip, we have written separately about day trips to Murter and the Kornati islands and about the beaches around Pirovac.