Tonight I am going to Budapest – for the Sziget festival !
A new weekend is approaching, so I need to go somewhere. Last weekend, I’ve been to Sibiu (yes, I need to write about it), two weekends ago, I was on the Romanian seaside at a pretty luxurious hotel, now it is the case for some music action… So, this weekend brings me a new experience – I am going to Budapest for the Sziget music festival !
I guess some of you heard about Sziget. It is the first mega-music festival of Central Europe and this year, it is the 20th edition ! Although you might have heard about Sziget or even took part, I guess not so many people know about its history. The first edition took place in 1993. It was the initiative of some students who were pissed as the government did not finance the cultural events anymore. Well, communism failed in 1988 – 1989 and the government was quite out of money (“same same” as today). So, some students took the initiative to organize a cool music festival on an island north of Budapest. The first festival was called “Diaksziget” meaning “The Students’ Island”, but afterwards, it remained only Sziget – “the Island”. The first edition was quite successful – it was attended by 43,000 people, but the financial recipe was a disaster. The helpful hand came from Pepsi who became the main sponsor in 1994 and Sziget survived !
Since then, millions joined the event, hundreds of bands performed and the small island North of Budapest became capital of Central European music, the festival covering styles as different as indie, rock, reggae and hip hop ! Last year, there were dozens bands and almost 400,000 spectators !
As of tonight until Sunday evening, I will be in Budapest for the festival, but not only ! As I am invited by the Hungarian Tourism Office, I will have a more complex program than just attending concerts and climbing Sziget Eye (The Sziget version of the more famous London Eye). I will be together with other 8 bloggers or journalists (have no clue who they are, but it seems I will be the only Romanian around) and the weekend seems to announce lots of excitement.
So, on Friday, we will start a “treasure hunt” across the city (I hope the fact that I was in Budapest like 50 – 60 times will really help me !). After so much running, in the afternoon is time to relax at Szechenyi Bath (I’ve been there like 2 times, but only to have a look, not really for a proper spa experience). Saturday, we will discover an artsy district of Budapest full with galleries, ateliers and an art community… Got to be spooky ! And the evenings… of course, I will go to Sziget. I will establish my HQ at the Hungarian Tourism Organization stand and try to attend as many experiences as possible.
Who is in the playlist ? A lot of bands – from The Vaccines to The xx, from Snoop Dogg (or whatever is his new name) to many others I’ve never heard of. I am quite curious who are Shantel & The Bucovina Club Orkestar from Germany. Bucovina is a province of Romania !
For more information of who will sing at Sziget this year, here is the concerts schedule. I would thank you if you could recommend me which bands to attend :). As said, I will be there on Friday and Saturday evenings.
By the way, is it anyone around ? Maybe we shall meet ! I will be really happy to meet and have a chat, a beer, a song :).
I love music and the capital Budapest is a beautiful city Hungarian people are so good I will be definitely there on Sziget music festival !Thanks.
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