Foto-Credits ©Rockstar Photographers, ©Benedek Varga, ©Sandor Csudai
So langsam wächst die Vorfreude, denn vom 09.-13. August ist Team Bedroomdisco zu Gast beim legendären Sziget Festival in Budapest. Und da wir ja von Grund auf neugierig und gerne so richtig gut vorbereitet sind, haben wir dem Sziget, oder genauer gesagt der Content Managerin Nori Rubin einige Fragen zum Festival gestellt. Los gehts!
First things first: please tell us a bit about yourself and your history with Sziget Festival.When did you start organizing Sziget and is this your all year round profession?
The first Sziget Festival was held in 1993 and has been a constant part of the culture in Budapest and Hungary ever since. We had the idea to organize a festival to show how cosmopolitan Hungary can be.Every year, the annual happenings attract over 500,000 fans to the Island of Freedom on the Danube.
How did Sziget start? Was your initial idea to create a huge music festival (maybe even with monetary means?) or you just started somehow and grew over time?
It has definitely grown over time, when we started no one had reckoned with the dimension that the festival has reached today.
Did everything worked out as planned or did you stumble upon any major drawbacks in the first years?
As with every festival, there were always a few minor setbacks. But it is well known that you learn from mistakes and in the end it helped us to optimize processes and to improve the organization.
How does such a huge festival cope with rising challenges like environmental protection and sustainability? Did you sense any changes in the mindsets of your visitors?
We are currently trying our best to implement as much as possible to protect the environment and to contribute our part. We also make the experience that our visitors have become much more alert and have a deep need to protect the environment around them. There is definitely a need.
Is there any moment, when all the pressure comes off, you are sure everything runs smoothly and you can actually enjoy the festival?
To be honest we are under stress until the last headliner played on the last day of the festival. But that’s ok, because every now and then there are the small moments in which we can enjoy the festival and always remember why we do our job.
So what has been your favorite memory or anecdote in Szigets history?
There are definitely too many good moments in the past ?.
If there is one performance (music/art/theatre/…) no guest should miss this year, which one would it be? Any recommendations for Sziget first timers?
Definitely the shows of our headliners and the other concerts of the smaller artists. But Sziget is much more than that. There are theaters, cinemas, good food, a funfair and so much more … a Sziget first timer should just drift across the infield on a day of his visit to discover the many small details that make the festival so special and endearing.
What do you think: How do budapestian citizens feel about Sziget Festival? Do they honor and appreciate the benefits it brings to the city’s cultural scene and do they award the climax in touristic activities? How many of your Szitizens (that’s how Szigets guests are called!) do actually come from Budapest or even Hungary?
Sziget is Budapest and Budapest is Sziget. Without the infrastructure and the inhabitants of the city, taxi drivers, hotel owners, tram drivers the festival would not be what it is. Every year many visitors come and discover not only the island of freedom but also the city. Therefore, we are happy that we always have a lot of people from Budapest and Hungary within our Szitizens.
Anything you would change in the future? Do you have any visions, ideas or maybe just call out your favorite band you would finally want to see at Sziget?
We hope that Sziget’s Love Revolution will spread on and for the Island to remain a place where everyone is welcome, no matter what their origin, skin color or sexual orientation is. We also hope to improve services in the long term and become as green as possible.
Wir bedanken uns bei Nuri für das nette Gespräch. Wer jetzt Lust bekommen hat, sich einmal persönlich von der Magie des Sziget Festivals überzeugen zu lassen, für den haben wir hier noch einmal Infos:
Sziget Festival (Budapest, Ungarn)
07.-13. August 2019
Line-Up: Ed Sheeran, Foo Fighters, The 1975, The National, Florence + The Machine, Years & Years, Macklemore, Richard Ashcroft, Franz Ferdinand, Mura Masa, Honne, Johnny Marr, James Blake, Parcels, Jungle, Khruangbin und viele mehr
Tickets & weitere Infos: https://szigetfestival.com/de
