From August 31 to September 5, 2023, the eighth edition of the International Folklore Festival "Ethno Rhythms" 2023 was held in the Golden Sands resort.

The festival was opened by Prof. Dr. Stoyan Marinov from the University of Economics - Varna, who is co-chairman of the Varna Tourist Chamber.

Traditionally, the forum began with a folklore parade of the participants, which passed along the main avenues of the Golden Sands. The parade was led by bagpipe and drum musicians Radoslav Vasilev and Georgi Zlatinov. In three places along the route, the folklore groups, Bulgarian and foreign, danced and sang in front of the admiring glances of tourists in the resort.

Over 500 performers from Bulgaria took part in the two concert evenings on September 2 and 3, which took place on an open stage in Park Hotel Riva.

They are representatives of 27 creative groups from 10 regions in the country - Silistra, Vidin, Gabrovo, Pleven, Yambol, Sliven, Kyustendil, Blagoevgrad, Razgrad and Plovdiv. Dancers, singers and musicians represented different ethnographic regions. The stage overflowed with rhythms, sounds and colors from Thrace, Dobrudzha, Shopluka, Northern Bulgaria and the Rhodopes. The guests of the festival also met the folklore culture and traditions of the Turkish ethnic group in Bulgaria. A Turkish folklore group from the village of Ryahovtsite, Gabrovo region, performed Turkish folklore songs.

The eighth edition of the folklore festival "Ethno rhythms" traditionally had an international participation - folklore ensembles and individual performers from Romania, Serbia, Greece, Kosovo, Lithuania, Ukraine and Moldova.

The special "best" awards at the festival went to: for the second year in a row, the youngest singer, Nikola Stoychev, 6 years old, from the village of Voden, Dimitrovgrad, and 83-year-old Alexander Todorov from Belogradchik took the prize for the oldest performer on stage.

The event is organized by the association "Communities, traditions, culture" with the support of the Municipality of Varna and the Varna Tourist Chamber.