The winners of the Golden Drum will be announced during the awards show powered by Mastercard on Tuesday, 10 October in Portorož, Slovenia.

Golden Drum says that its motto remains 'Strong competition, good school, devilish challenge and crazy party'.

The competition adds that it has seen more than half of its entries come from independent agencies. Now that the entries have closed, the juries have started with selection.

Advertisers, agencies and other marketing communications professionals from 29 different countries have entered their best works in the following diverse sections:
  • One-Channel Drum
  • Omni-Channel Drum
  • Craft Drum
  • Creative Media Excellence Drum
  • Creative Business Excellence Drum, and
  • a special All Juries section.

The number of entries in the competition has surpassed previous years, according to Miha Bevc, one of the competition's directors.

"The Golden Drum traditionally plays an important role in the creative, marketing and advertising community in the European advertising space. Therefore, we are extremely proud that the festival is returning even stronger this year," adds Bevc.

"Agencies from as many as 29 countries submitted their work this year, surpassing the number from last year. The most entries came from Ukraine, Romania, Poland, Slovakia, Hungary and Bulgaria (in that order) with the best response from newly included markets coming from Sweden. As the friendliest festival around, we can't wait to catch up again on the Slovenian coast, in Portorož," says Bevc. 

Špela Levicnik Oblak, a director of the competition, says, "The Golden Drum Festival proudly announces that the new media section has been more than accepted among entrants of the competition. The One Channel section is still ahead with the highest number of entries, where Print, Film and OOH are the strongest categories."

"I believe there will be a great competition with many outstanding, fresh and exciting entries. Let's applaud all the winners in Portorož in October at the friendliest festival in the world," adds Oblak.

The two-stage judging process has begun. The juries are led by the following professionals from all around the globe:
  • Pancho Cassis, partner and global chief creative officer at DAVID, United States of America / Spain
  • Aaron Starkman, global chief creative officer at Rethink, Canada
  • Ashwini Deshpande, co-founder and director of Elephant Design, India
  • Barbara Evans, managing partner at Mediaplus Group, Germany, and
  • Daniela Iebba, director of communications at Global Heineken® Brand, The Netherlands.

The highlight of the Golden Drum competition will be the special gala event, honouring:
  • great creativity and announcing the best of the best of the 2023
  • winner of the Young Drummers competition, which is powered by Slovenian Tourist Board
  • winners of Bronze, Silver, Golden and Grand Prix Drums
  • winners of the Brand Grand Prix, Best of Social Good, Best of Genius Loci and the new award powered by Telemach Slovenia Game Changer
  • winner of Adriatic Agency of the Year, which is powered by Zavarovalnica Triglav
  • winner of the Independent Agency of the Year, which is supported by Allfred.io
  • winners of the Agency of the Year, the Production Agency of the Year and the Digital Agency of the Year
  • the Media Agency of the Year, which is powered by BH Telecom
  • winner of the Creative Director of the Year, which is powered by Elan, and
  • winner of the Network of the Year.

"During the evening celebration, we will also welcome the new member of the Golden Drum Hall of Fame," says the awards. 

The Golden Drum competition Shortlists will be announced on Monday, 2 October at 08:00 CET. Winners will be announced on Tuesday, 10 October at 20:00 CET.

For more information, visit www.goldendrum.com. You can also follow Golden Drum on Facebook, X or on Instagram.