In what looks to be the most musically diverse festival ever, this year’s lineup for Serbia’s Exit Festival is like the very calculated iTunes playlist that your music junkie friend threw on as background music on a road trip and has you stopping for really frequent bathroom breaks because everything is so ridiculously good that you’re trying not to pee yourself from excitement.

In addition to an amazingly diverse offering of genres, musical acts and overall fun and interesting things to do, what makes the festival even more incredible is the venue. The festival is held within the walls of Petrovaradin Fortress, an 18th century fortress where wars were fought and people once lived and died. And now people come from all over the world come to celebrate the fact that life is fantastic.

Last year’s festival had 14 music stages tucked into every little nook-and-cranny possible in this incredible venue. There were stages devoted to everything from metal, latin, folk, Serbian bands, and local student DJs. But the main draws were the Main Stage and the Dance Arena, which each held over 35,000 and 20,000 people respectively. Last year’s festival featured acts such as Arcade Fire, Jamiroquai, Santigold, Bad Religion, Beirut, Underworld, Deadmau5, Fedde Le Grand, Steve Aoki, Joachim Garraud, Paul Kalkbrenner, Joris Voorn, and Gramophonedzie. In addition, there was a movie area that showed international movies about music, an NGO area to educate festival goers about important social issues, and a couple of towers where people could zip-line while taking in spectacular views of the city of Novi Sad and the Danube river.

With a lineup consisting of the biggest names in music, along with hot new up-and-coming acts, and a whole bunch of acts unfamiliar to me (but that will probably end up changing my life), the Exit Festival aims to please all, and aspires to give everyone a serious education in musical awesomeness.

Here’s this year’s lineup:

http://www.exitfest.org/en/lineup/lineup-2012

Here are some of the featured acts:
Avicii
Luciano
Richie Hawtin
Laurent Garnier
Knife Party
Art Department
Maceo Plex
Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs
Jacques Lu Cont
Brodinski
Azari & III (Live)
Claude Von Stroke
Little Dragon
Buraka Som Sistema
Sub Focus
The Gossip
New Order
Hercules and Love Affair
Netsky ft. MC Dynamite
Erykah Badu
Plan B
Suicidal Tendencies
Borgore
Guns n’Roses
Duran Duran
Wolfmother
Skream
Goldie
Sneaky Sound System
Thieves Like Us