She's a young, freaky, intelligent chick who just turned 14. Very mature for her age, but not a bit old-fashioned. Kind of sexy and provocative, but in a very classy way. Always curious about the hottest trends, craziest ideas, most on-the-edge experience and most over-the-top friends. She loves to party, but never looks jaded in the morning. Her favorite month is May, her favorite company young, creative people ... and yes, she's always looking for THE one ...

Magdalena is a non-profit festival of creativity, organized and managed by young people for the young people. It was established in 1999 as a response to expensive and formal advertising festivals, and soon focused on creative manifestations of public communication and took more critical stand toward irresponsible practices in this field.

The festival is a three-day event taking place in Maribor (Slovenia) in May every year, widely known by good organization, interesting guests and its informal spirit. Low fees for entry registration and attendance to festival lectures and parties guarantee access to most young people who wish to share their creativity with wider audience or see the work of their fellow designers. More than 5,000 visitors and 6,000 entries presented in last thirteen years show that young creative generation needs a place where they can compete, socialize and exchange experience and ideas. 
 The three main aspects of Magdalena are: competition education networking 
In ten years, Magdalena has also become an important reference and meeting point for those who seek their future in the world of design, advertising, media and other fields of public communication.

The first goal of the festival is to find and award the most creative ideas, outstanding design and effective communication in the field of public communication, created by young authors. Festival competition for the best works in print, motion, interactive and experimental media is open to authors under the age of 30 worldwide. Six internationally acknowledged practitioners select and award the best examples and give away more than 15 festival awards each year. Magdalena and Golden & Silver Bras became one of the most desired awards for young creativity in Europe.

One of the festival specialities are creative briefs. They are similar to agency briefs for advertising campaigns and present special challenge for all young creative spirits with less experience in working with clients.

All the entries registered to the festival are exhibited at Magdalena festival venues during the time of the festival and for about 3 weeks afterwards. All the winners, plus a wider body of the year's best work, are showcased at the festival website, in the Magdalena Yearbook and on various Magdalena appearances at related events.

Bringing famous and controversial guests, raising questions about topics that have not been discussed before and recognizing new trends in communication are as important to Magdalena as celebrating fresh creativity. We hosted many special people from all over the globe; among them Anne Telford from Communication Arts (USA), Trevor Beatie, creative director in TBWA London, Frederic Beigbeder, the author of bestseller "99 Francs", Paolo Pininfarina, Ian Anderson of The Designers Republic, media activist Tom Liacas of Adbusters Media Fundation, Sandy Kaltenborn, founder of Bildwechsel studio, Peter Bilak, founder of Typotheque and DOT DOT DOT magazine, and many many more.

Magdalena is the place where you can meet friends, colleagues, soul mates and (future) co-workers. Three days of exhibitions, lectures, discussions and workshops and three nights of wild parties to wrap up the "working day" and provide the energy for the next one. As one of our guest said - you'll leave the Magdalena educated, inspired, entertained and somehow transformed.