In Bram Stoker’s 1897 classic novel Dracula, the titular count consumes the blood of those who cross his path, using the substance to gain terrible strength and power.
Untold Festival, a dance music festival that’s happened in Romania’s Transylvania region annually since 2015, has used this regional vampire folklore to also gain power and give strength, but in this case for a very good cause.
With its Blood Network program, Untold has collected thousands of gallons of blood over the last eight years, with donations going to medical centers throughout Romania. In exchange for their blood, donors receive a complimentary day pass for the festival, the eighth iteration of which took place this past weekend (August 3-6), hosting roughly 420,000 attendees. The lineup featured more than 200 genre-spanning dance artists including Eric Prydz, David Guetta, Bebe Rexha, Amelie Lens and Tale Of Us, along with headliners including Armin van Buuren and Imagine Dragons.
“We thought, ‘What if we make a campaign based on the idea that vampires from Transylvania usually suck blood — but in this case they don’t suck blood, but [rather] donate it?’” Untold co-founder Edy Chereji tells Billboard.
From this simple, sanguine premise, Untold Festival launched their blood drive campaign in tandem with 2015’s debut festival. Initially called Pay with Blood, this Year One campaign got 1,500 Romanians to donate blood at transfusion centers around the eastern European country, which borders Hungary, Serbia and Ukraine. The mountainous, forested Transylvania region is in the heart of Romania, with Untold taking place at the Cluj Arena in the region’s metropolis city of Cluj-Napoca.
Beyond helping people, the campaign helped get the word out about the event, which upon its launch became Romania’s largest electronic music festival. It remains one of the only dance music festivals in the greater region, drawing fans from throughout Romania, along with Bulgaria, Moldavia, Ukraine, Albania and Greece. In 2016, Untold’s parent company, Untold Universe, launched a second event, Neversea, which takes place in the Romanian beach town of Constanța. A winter event, Massif, takes place in the ski town of Poiana Brasov, and Untold will launch another dance festival in Dubai next February.
But despite these national and international moves, Blood Network remains quite local. In its second year, Blood Network donors were able to give blood at both transfusion centers and via a mobile donation center that traveled around the country and which has since become a standard facet of the campaign. Donors can show up to this donation center on wheels, give their blood and immediately receive a free day pass for the fest.
Ahead of this year’s Untold, the caravan touched down in 12 Romanian cities between May and June. During this period, more than 5,000 donors gave more than 2,200 liters (roughly 580 gallons) of blood, with thousands of gallons also collected over previous years. Blood Network partners with doctors from Regina Maria Private Healthcare to coordinate these blood drives, with Regina Maria also receiving the collected blood.
While many dance events have charitable components, arguably few have the immediate effects of Blood Network, which isn’t just a festival marketing tool but a provider of life-saving blood in a country where it’s acutely needed. “Unfortunately, the donation in Romania is low, around 2% of Romanians donate blood,” says Ania Vladescu, Strategic Partnerships Manager at Romania’s Regina Maria Private Healthcare. “The Blood Network campaign created by Untold is very good, necessary and welcomed — it helps a lot.”
Vladescu estimates that over the last eight years, the campaign has gathered more than 37,000 donors, whose blood has helped and saved the lives of more than 100,000 people. She adds that blood donated by one person can save three lives.
“Anyone else who would have done such a campaign, anywhere in the world, would not have had the same trigger of authenticity as Untold, being a festival in the heart of Transylvania, the so-called land of Dracula,” Vladescu adds. “The vampire who normally sucks blood, this time invites you to donate blood to help people who suffer and save their lives.”
