It doesn’t yet have the notoriety of European counterparts like Glastonbury, Roskilde or Benicàssim, but the Sziget festival in Budapest soon will.
Held on an island – Óbudai Island – that sits slap bang in the middle of the Danube River, Sziget is one of the largest festivals in Europe. For starters it lasts longer than a week, with performances every day between Sunday August 5 and Sunday August 12. (Though day one is one for fans of Hungarian music as it features local bands playing domestic songs).
Incredibly, there are more than 40 different areas on the site to catch music, from the huge Pop-Rock Main Stage, all the way to a collection of smaller tents and stalls. Yeah, in that count there’s some food stalls and soulless marquees run by sponsors – still, by any standard that’s an incredible amount of choice.
Oh and it probably has one of the best tag lines of all festivals: “What you SZI is what you GET” – an admittedly clever word play for a non-English festival.
A weekly pass including camping costs around £190 (not including the dreaded booking fee). If you can’t make it to Budapest you can still get a feel for the festival, as some events – the bigger stages naturally – are being streamed live on YouTube.
Enjoy our playlist of the more high profile bands performing at this year’s festival below. It gives a taste of how eclectic the line-up is at Sziget!
1. Placebo – Every You Every Me
2. The Killers – Smile Like You Mean It
3. Korn – Freak On A Leash
4. The Ting Tings – That’s Not My Name
5. Glasvegas – Geraldine
6. The Roots – The Seed (2.0)
7. Sum 41 – The Hell Song
8. The Stone Roses – Fools Gold
9. Goran Bregovic and the Wedding and Funeral Band (SRB) – Kalasnijikov
10. Katzenjammer – A Bar in Amsterdam
Written by insider city guide series Hg2 | A Hedonist’s guide to…
(Image: Mark Somay)