From the experience of previous years, we know that there is a serious safety problem at the Ceramic Festival. There are simply too few police officers; the police have many vacant positions, and very serious incidents occur during the festival. The head of security hired for the festival himself spoke about a knifeman whom he had to neutralize.
“We selected a company that will oversee the safety of the mass event that is the Ceramic Festival,” director Kornel Filipowicz reassured attendees at the session.
According to a police report, in 2025, during the festival’s five days, police officers in Bolesławiec County intervened a total of 336 times and carried out 207 roadside checks, arresting five intoxicated drivers. The services detained seven wanted individuals, including one man wanted on an arrest warrant. As many as nine people were arrested while committing crimes, and 27 reports were filed concerning disturbances of public order or the quiet of the night. Most reports of disturbances concerned streets in the area around central Bolesławiec.
Every year, Bolesławiec residents complain about the lack of night patrols during the festival, long waits for the police to arrive, dangerous situations at night, and drunken brawls.
Controversy Surrounding Bregović’s Political Sympathies
Bolesławiec teacher and regionalist Dariusz Gołębiewski, who traveled to war-torn Ukraine, publicly expressed his opposition to the planned Goran Bregović concert in Bolesławiec. Bregović is a Bosnian musician who has openly displayed pro-Russian sympathies for years.
Dariusz Gołębiewski accuses the artist, among other things, of performing at the Kremlin and in occupied Crimea after its annexation in 2014, appearing in Moscow on the day of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, and glorifying the Red Army. After visiting Kyiv, Gołębiewski considers it scandalous that the city invited an artist who has not unequivocally condemned Russian aggression.
The organizers of the Ceramic Festival (Kornel Filipowicz and Piotr Roman) have not responded either to residents’ concerns about safety during the festival or to the ethical conflict caused by Bregović’s concert in a city that welcomed Ukrainian refugees with great compassion in 2022 after Putin’s attack.