Water Rules

The 15th Sziget festival had the best program of its festival history. There were 250 international acts from 56 countries and 500 domestic bands and performers present on the jubilee event. The rain was an uninvited guest and although there were a high number of visitors due to the bad weather the record numbers of last year could not be broken even with such a high quality program. All through the week the 15th Sziget Festival had 371 000 visitors.

"Even if we did not succeed financially, we had the most successful festival ever in the means of program and atmosphere" said founder Károly Gerendai. "Due to the rainy days of the weekend we had less visitors than expected, so we could not reach the numbers that could have made the festival profitable." According to the head organizer, although this year’s festival budget started with great minuses with the lack of Government support, the withdrawal of one of the main sponsors, inflation and the changes in taxation the management was able to lower these numbers. However the other events — this year successful, like VOLT Festival, Peninsula or the LGT concert — of the company will make up for some the losses, added Mr. Gerendai.

Stars and Stories

Manu Chao invited the band Quimby — one of the most popular Hungarian alternative band — for a little jam session. On the opening day of Sziget after the Manu Chao concert the two bands met at the dressing rooms, where they started a spontaneous mini concert just for their own amusement. Already in the afternoon Manu was checking on the guitar of Tibi Kiss, than asked for it and used it all though his whole show.

Pink ordered a round of cocktail for herself and her band: A type of Caipirinha coctail with vodka, the Caipiroska. The waiter arriving to the stage tried to sneak out leaving the glasses next to the speakers. However Pink asked him to serve the drinks around the band and bowed for the startled waiter.

Nine Inch Nails, who played on Saturday already arrived on Thursday. After the obligatory sightseeing and gulas Trent Reznor entered Sziget on Friday — together with his girlfriend he checked on the concert of Skinny Puppy at HammerWorld Stage and went backstage to hang out with the members of the band.

The French band Cassius arrived during a heavy downpour to the WAN2 stage. Their bus got stuck in the mud so their equipment had to be transported with an additional car and the band walked to the backstage on foot. The band members spontaneously put plastic bags over themselves as a protection from the rain.

The 4 millionth visitor of the festival

The all over 4 millionth visitor of Sziget festival arrived on Thursday at 9 pm. Ferenc Schmidt came with his wife, Éva from Kosice. They wanted to check on the Chemical Brothers and planned to stay till 2 am. The young visitor is a regular festival visitor so he was truly thankful for the eternal entrance card, which is valid to all Sziget events.

Kiss and Music — 2 Guinness records on the festival

A new Guiness record was made on Sunday on Sziget — 14902 people were kissing on the area in front of the Mainstage. The Kiss-record, hosted by BORS, the famous tabloid, overwrote its last record attempt with 1654 members, which was held in June on Kossuth square.

Also on Sziget in the heart of Open stage area on the Guinness Pódium the world longest concert was given. The show started on the morning of the zero day and they have broken the previous record at 9 am of the 15th. However, the bands were so much into playing that they kept on jamming way after the official deadline.

The French dog

People brought mostly telephones, cameras, backpacks and wallets to the lost-and-found of Sziget Two guys delivered a third one deeply asleep to the desk, declaring they have found him in their own tent. A dog was also handed over to the staff. After checking the international registration on the collar, they found out it was a French dog. The pet found its family quite fast.

Sziget got married

There were approximately 200 marriages daily in the wedding tent. The service is really popular among international visitors. There were some instances that the couple brought assistance, flowers, family and friend who threw rice on the newlyweds. There were many who attended the tent with serious intentions and asked their partner out for real. On Tuesday a young fellow got married to the whole Sziget Festival.

Beer for the ticket

It was a successful debut of the friendly BKV Beer-tram. Those who had a validated BKV ticket got a can of Aranyászok and could easily travel between the ‘tent-garden’ and ‘Sziget square’.

30% recyclable garbage!

Year after year Sziget visitors are becoming more and more environmental conscious. In Green area program, which is sponsored by KvVM more and more garbage is recycled out of the enormous amount of litter collected during the festival. As a result of the six year long campaign promoting the environmental friendly lifestyle on the festival 30% of the collected garbage are to become recycled. According to the preliminary calculation Sziget dwellers collected more than 500 m³ recyclable garbage, which is the amount a city with the population 100 000 would make a day. This is a serious result of the 36 containers and the 2 exchange points and the additional collections on the program venues.

On the closing day of Sziget after the concert of the Killers the deconstruction of the Mainstage began. The cleaning of the island takes approximately two week, which will be followed by the reconstruction of the park.