Herceg Novi - Traditionally, since 1994, the most successful local and foreign artists of the previous year, as well as debutants - future stars in pop music, have been seen in three festival evenings at the beautiful Kanli Kula in Herceg Novi, the fortress that dominates the old town. Kemal Monteno, Goran Karan, Ivana Banfić, Željko Joksimović, Bojan Marović, among others, paraded through the impressive scenography of this year's Sunčane Skala festival. <>From the first day, the conception of the Sun Scales has not changed - the first evening is the awarding of the Prince's Awards, where the most successful artists of the past year compete for gold plaques in sixteen categories at the EX YU venues. This year, the competition includes Vlado Georgijev, Zdravko Čolić, Kemal Monteno, Bojan Bajramović, Anabella, Aleksandra Radović, Ana Stanić, Goca Tržan, Ivana Banfić, Maja Nikolić, Hari Mata Hari, Magazin, Crvena jabuka, Zana and other famous names of the Balkan variety show. Among them, the most successful was Željko Joksimović, who won awards for the best male interpretation, the best composition and the hit of the year with the song "Lane moje". On the second night, twenty-five young artists - debutants compete in the evening called "New Stars", and the winner gets the right to compete on the last night of the competition when "Song of the Summer" is chosen. At Sunčani Skala 2004, in the competition of new stars, Ivana Popović won with the song "Odlazi", with which she also performed in "Song of the Summer" and achieved great success by winning third place. "Silver Siren" at "Song of Summer" was won by Goca Tržan with the composition "Dress". "I think the song is very beautiful and I am happy that the audience was delighted, and everything else is less important. My entire new album, which I am recording this summer, is a hit after a hit, and maybe I will even go to America, although I always have a hard time separating myself from the beautiful Herceg Novi,'' said Tržan after the award ceremony. The winner of this year's Sunčani Skala, according to the expert jury, is Romana with the song "Nikad i zauvjek", which was written and arranged for her by Marina Tucaković and Željko Joksimović. "I believe that this festival and this song will be a turning point in my career. I have to admit that I did not expect this kind of reaction from the audience, especially not the one in Herceg Novi. I'm not sure what happened and why the whistles, whether they didn't like the song or whether it was something else, I don't know, but everything will be fine in the end,'' said Romana after receiving the Golden Mermaid and the twenty-five thousand euro prize for the winner of the Sunčani Scales.

By the way, a novelty at this year's festival is the cooperation of the representatives of the Municipality of Herzegnov with the organizers of Sunčani Skala, so that for the first time the festival was opened by the mayor, Dejan Mandić, who, among other things, said that the festival and the city have the same soul and that Skala needs Nova and Nova needs Skala. In that context, the director of the festival, Slobodan Bučevac, and the executive producer, Vuk Rajković, promised a better organization and quality of the festival next year. All in all, Sunčane Skale is definitely included in the official tourist offer of Boca. Nebojsa Mandic