From May 7 to 10, Rovinj was once again the capital of the communications industry — and yes, we were there. Dani komunikacija 2026 broke every record so far this year, and Hotel Lone turned into a meeting point for people from all over the world, with too few hours in the day.

The numbers that actually matter

This year the festival grew to a scale people will be talking about for months:

• Several thousand attendees from five countries
• 200+ speakers and performers across five stages and eight locations
• ~100 programme segments over three days and three nights
• 170 jury members deciding the awards
• 150+ partners and sponsors
• A main hall with 300+ m² of LED surface — the walls literally became screens

The lineup this year was, as expected, top-notch — and here are some of the main-stage speakers we want to highlight:

Jürgen Schmidhuber, the man half the world calls the father of modern artificial intelligence (his work underpins ChatGPT, Google Translate, Siri, and Alexa), came to Rovinj to talk about how AI is no longer just a tool but a civilizational shift. The room — the kind of silence you rarely hear.

Julie Supan arrived from Silicon Valley with a track record that’s hard to beat: YouTube’s first marketing director, the brand strategist behind Airbnb, Dropbox, Reddit, and Discord. A classic.

Mark Pollard (author of Strategy Is Your Words, mentor to brands like Facebook and Mozilla) gave a talk people were later quoting in the hallways like scripture. Chris Do, founder of The Futur, ran a masterclass on how creatives can finally make real money.

Dora Pekeč brought a story straight from the front lines — as press secretary on Zohran Mamdani’s New York mayoral campaign, she knew exactly how to explain what communications looks like in a world where messages don’t end in press releases, but in the feed. Steve Keller unpacked sonic branding, Jule Kim broke down leadership, and Stephan Loerke(WFA) and Mike Follett (Lumen Research) tackled the attention economy.

May 9, 2026, Rovinj — day three of the 12th edition of Dani komunikacija. Atmosphere.

And from the local scene: Mate Rimac, Damir Sabol, Baby Lasagna, OKO, Phat Phillie, Lunar… Definitely an interesting crew to listen to.

Our panel: Did the Media Lose Interest or Did We Lose the Story?

May 8, 2026, Rovinj — day two of the 12th edition of Dani komunikacija. Panel “Did the Media Lose Interest or Did We Lose the Story?” with Mario Jurič, Mate Prlić, Luka Šipić, and Lucija Lončarić.

We got our own stage too. On Friday, May 8, at the DK LLLounge at 13:00, we asked the question that keeps every PR and comms person up at night:

Did the media lose interest — or did we lose the good story?

The panel brought people from both sides of the inbox:

• Mario Jurič — anchor and reporter, RTL Danas
• Mate Prlić — marketing director and co-founder, Dalmatinski portal
• Luka Šipić — owner of Vrh komunikacije, HUOJ representative for Dalmatia
• Lucija Lončarić — Event & Content Editor, Split Tech City

We talked about unread emails, “just following up again” follow-ups, quiet eye-rolls in newsrooms, and the question almost no one asks out loud: what if the problem isn’t the algorithm or the editor, but the story itself? And what we’ve prepared for journalists? Or haven’t?

And everything else in between — and there’s a lot of it

DK isn’t only about the talks. Beyond following the awards across various categories for the leading agencies (congrats to our SeekandHit) and local creative work, there’s a whole side of it for unwinding.

Edo Maajka tore the roof off the Slušaj mater party, DJ Rea and DJ Legger took over the No Exit Party on Friday, and on Saturday the main-stage speakers stepped behind the DJ booth. Add sunrise yoga, the morning running club, panoramic helicopter flights, a beach session at Porto Morto, and — yes — tattoos (by Mr. Ink, if you must know).

Nobody left Rovinj with the same number of contacts and ideas they came with.

See you next year. Until then, see you at our Split Tech City Festival on September 4 so we can pick up the conversations we started in Rovinj.