Around 6,000 students danced the quadrille, a traditional prom dance, in 20 Slovenian towns at noon on 19 May, in what has become a popular way to mark the end of school for final-year secondary school students.

Roughly 2,500 students danced in the capital of Ljubljana and around 1,000 in Maribor, the country's second largest city.

The quadrille festival started out in Slovenia in the early 2000s and has since spread to five other countries - Serbia, Slovakia, Hungary, North Macedonia and Montenegro. The project's coordinator Rudi Kocbek said up to 19,000 students danced in six countries in total.

This year's event was more sombre than usual since it came in the aftermath of a deadly school shooting in Serbia that has had a profound impact on Slovenian students.

One student organiser, Tjaž, said the organisers wanted to contribute to a positive mood and to socialising, and are happy that the youth responded in such great numbers.

Katja, a student, said she joined the dance because it signals an end to a certain period in her life.

The Slovenian Dance Association holds the last tree Guinness world records for the largest number of simultaneous dancers of the quadrille. The record was set in 2011 with 33,202 dancers.