Belgrade City Guides and Lifestyle Magazines

By Li Novak

Belgrade, Sept. 16, 2009 (Serbia Today) - It is not easy to organize one’s cultural and social life in a big city. For that purpose, in Belgrade we have city guides and lifestyle magazines. There are enough various magazines for everybody’s taste. In all of them one could find a lot of information about music, culture, literature, entertainment, lifestyle, exhibitions, theater, cinema, gastronomy, art, fashion, sport, nightlife, festivals and official or avant-garde city events. Some of the most read city guides and lifestyle magazines are the following:
Trip Magazine, besides the standard information, contains city map, calendar, shopping tips, columns “hot spots” about interesting new destinations and “green life” about ecology. It is characteristic by its small “pocket” format. One of the editors is the legend of Belgrade’s radio journalism Darko Kocjan. Trip magazine could be found on many spots in town, in theaters, cinemas, museums, galleries, boutiques etc, and it’s free. Besides the content on Serbian language, there are also English content pages for the foreigners. The distribution net of this guide is very wide: 20000 copies have been published every month. The latest issue is from September 1st. In addition, there is an online version of Trip magazine, with a same number of pages and format.
Another free city guide is Singidunum Weekly. 25000 copies are available on 550 locations all over the city, every week. The advantage of this magazine is its actuality, considering the frequent editions. The latest issue is from September 11th.
Time Out is a monthly magazine that informs about city events; it belongs in the group of lifestyle magazines. This licensed magazine has a long publishing tradition in many metropolises. From November 2008, we have a possibility to read it in Serbian language. After the summer pause, the magazine will continue with publishing in October, with regular columns – Scene, Film, Art, Body and soul, Books, Children, BG stories, Night life, Time in, Chat and others.
Thanks to the team of young journalists with fresh writing styles, this magazine offers different look on Belgrade. Lara Djuricanin, Editor in Chief of Time Out, told Serbia Today: “Time Out is a well-known opinion making magazine, promoting and celebrating the cultural life of the city and urban lifestyle. What makes Time Out different from the others: author's articles, very clear editorial direction, specific language and of course layout.” The good news for the foreigners in Belgrade is that Time Out will soon publish guides in English: Time Out Belgrade and Time Out Serbia. The first idea of authors of Yellow cab magazine was: the citizens of Belgrade deserve magazine that raises the quality of everyday life. Nowadays, Yellow cab is a brand. It has its own TV show under the same name and the internet portal. In addition, the English version of the portal is planned for the near future.
Visual image and concept of Urban bug magazine is a little bit different. The dominant colors in printed and online edition are black and green. The accent is on urban events – techno music, interviews with DJ-s, clubbing, alternative music etc. The readers of this magazine are mostly adolescents.
City magazine is another free city informer, in large format. Its journalists write about chosen top cultural events, and the reading audience is various. There is a possibility of downloading the PDF version, on the internet pages.
The variety and quantity of city guides and similar magazines are good for the citizens of Belgrade. Because of the competition, the editors and journalists have to fight for the readers, by raising the quality of their magazines.