In less than three months time the 18th International Advertising Festival of New Europe Golden Drum will take place in Portorož, Slovenia from October 5th to 8th 2011.

This year's festival, organized my Slovenian Advertising Chamber will introduce many novelties: new competition structure, Competition open only to 37 countries from New Europe and divided in two sections called Single Channel and Multi Channel, no less than 14 Grand Prix Prizes, new Virtuoso Award and distinguished speakers: Tony Granger, Alistair Beattie, Michael Conrad and many others.

Theme
New Europe, New Thinking isn't just the main theme of the 18th Golden Drum Festival, but a long term challenge, given to agencies, advertisers, media and other members of creative industry. With a new image and positioning of the Golden Drum Festival, organizers wish to position this year's festival as a place for most creative, innovative and boldest ideas from New Europe.

Golden Drum Festival has in the past created a strong name and recognition, becoming one of the few Slovenian and internationally recognized brands. As an international advertising festival it has always been an accelerator and herald of new ideas, something this year's festival also strives for. Golden Drum is and remains primarily advertising event of New Europe and one of the biggest European advertising festivals.

Program
Program of this year's Creative Academy will host distinguished professionals, such as Tony Granger, Global Chief Creative Officer, Y&R, Jon Williams, Chief Digital Officer, Grey London, Peter Scherman, CEO, BBDO Europe, Alistair Beattie, Head of Strategic Planning and Innovation, DDB London, EMEA, Michael Conrad, President of the Berlin School of Creative Leadership Worldwide, Zürich, Emma Wilkie, Gunn Report, Karpat Polat, Chief Creative Officer, DDB Istanbul, Mark Husak, Millward Brown, Digital Media, Will Sansom, Contagious and Robin van Rozen, CMO Phillips, EE countries.

At Golden Drum's traditional Labs we will have a chance to listen to experts such as Mickey Denehy and Steve Henry, EACA International School of Advertising and Communications (Education Lab), Urlich Proeschel, TBWA (Agency Lab), Thomas Schmid, Friendly Fire (Digital Lab), Krešimir Macan, Manjgura and Desiree Maurd, Prime PR (PR Lab).

Competition
Golden Drum Competition Council, lead by communication experts Tanja Mezga, Lučka Peljhan, Gal Erbežnik, Mark Majer, Tomasz Pirc and Janez Rakušček was faced with a challenge to restructure Golden Drum's Competition. This year's Golden Drum Competition is again open only to countries from New Europe (Albania, Armenia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Cyprus, Estonia, Finland, Georgia, Greece, Hungary, Israel, Kazakhstan, Kosovo, Kyrgyzstan, Latvia, Lebanon, Lithuania, Macedonia, Malta, Moldova, Montenegro, Poland, Romania, Russia, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Tajikistan, Turkey, Turkmenistan, Ukraine and Uzbekistan).

This year's novelty is also the structure of the Competition, that is divided in two sections: Single Channel, for entries that excel in the most creative and efficient use of a single communication channel and Multi Channel, for entries that promote creative use and integration of more than one communication channel. This division reflects current practice of advertising agencies and follows the everyday logic of creating advertisements and advertising campaigns.