{"id":375298,"date":"2019-07-10T18:00:11","date_gmt":"2019-07-10T16:00:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thomann.de\/blog\/?p=375298"},"modified":"2019-07-10T13:08:27","modified_gmt":"2019-07-10T11:08:27","slug":"sziget-festival-budapest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thomann.de\/blog\/en\/inspire\/sziget-festival-budapest\/","title":{"rendered":"Sziget, Island of Freedom"},"content":{"rendered":"

Szi-what?!<\/h3>\n

Sziget!<\/strong> It’s pronounced like “SEE-GET”<\/strong> and it means “Island”<\/strong> in Hungarian. This makes perfect sense because this award-winning festival<\/strong> takes place on an island called \u00d3budai-sziget<\/strong>, in the north part of\u00a0Budapest<\/strong> on the Danube river<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

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History<\/h3>\n

Sziget festival started in 1993<\/strong>, after the fall of the Soviet occupation, when a new spirit of freedom<\/strong> was brewing in Hungary and surrounding countries. With the absence of their Socialist summer youth camps, young people felt a new-found urge to enjoy the summer months and art and music were the ideal channels for this.\u00a0Musician P\u00e9ter M\u00fcller<\/strong> and manager K\u00e1roly Gerendai,<\/strong> along with a community of like-minded people put together the first Sziget festival (then called Di\u00e1ksziget or “Student Island”) with very little budget<\/strong> but with many ideas<\/strong>. The following year, coinciding with the 25th anniversary<\/strong> of the Woodstock<\/strong> festival, they called their festival “Eurowoodstock”<\/strong> and had headliners from the original Woodstock such as\u00a0Eric Burdon<\/strong>,\u00a0Grandmothers of Invention<\/strong>,\u00a0Jefferson Starship<\/strong>, and\u00a0Jethro Tull<\/strong>, just to name a few.<\/p>\n

\"Sziget<\/a>
Sziget in the ’90s<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

This catapulted the festival into the public eye and they soon acquired a major commercial sponsor<\/strong>,\u00a0Pepsi<\/strong>, in 1996, for the following 5 years. Attendance grew exponentially (260k attendees<\/strong> in 1997<\/strong>) and the artist lineups became more and more outstanding as the years passed. By 2018<\/strong> the attendee count surpassed half a million people <\/strong>(560k<\/strong> to be exact) and this year it is expected to be the same or more. The festival has won the European Festival Awards’ Best Major European Festival award<\/strong> twice, in 2011 and in 2014 and has been ranked as one of the 5 best festivals<\/strong> in Europe by The Independent<\/em>.<\/p>\n

\"Sziget
Sziget in the 2010s<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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What makes Sziget stand out among festivals?<\/h3>\n

Besides the fact that it’s now a 7-day festival<\/strong> with over 1000 performances<\/strong> (no, this is not a typo), Sziget has a reputation of being a<\/strong> complete escape from reality<\/strong>, in an Eastern European country, on an island, full of insane decorations,<\/strong> an amusement park\u00a0<\/strong>and being called the\u00a0Burning Man<\/strong> equivalent of Europe. Sounds too good to be true right? Well, there’s more: Even though full festival passes cost around 300 euros<\/strong> it is still relatively cheaper to attend this festival because prices<\/strong> for food and drink<\/strong> are much lower<\/strong> than in Western Europe. You also have the option of saving your money by bringing y<\/strong>our own food<\/strong> and non-alcoholic drinks<\/strong>, definitely a rarity at festivals! Also, Sziget’s proximity to the cosmopolitan city of Budapest<\/strong> (only a quick boat ride away) makes for a much more diverse group of attendees<\/strong> because you have a nice blend of festival goers and campers from all over the world and cosmopolitan Budapest citizens<\/strong>. Because it’s so close to the city many attendees get two experiences in one<\/strong>: the festival itself and a visit<\/strong>\u00a0of\u00a0Budapest<\/strong>, a\u00a0one-of-a-kind city.<\/p>\n\n\t\t