the music takes second place to everything else at Sziget

What are you looking for in a festival? If music and bands are your number one priorities stick to some of the bigger ones in the UK. If you want to try something different why not jump on a plane or train and head to Budapest in Hungary next August and experience something completely different.

Sziget on Obudi Island in the middle of the Danube River, between Buda and Pest is truly an amazing festival. From the river, the trees on the island are so dense that you would not even know that there was a festival on. Only the large blue helium balloons with Sziget in large letters floating suspended from ropes 100 feet above the island gives a clue that something may be going on.



Located approximately 3 miles outside the city centre with excellent public transport links by train (HEV) which stops at the festival, tram, and water taxi, Siget festival is easy to get to. It ran this year between 12th and 18th of August. Yes, no weekender here but seven full days of bands and fun in 90 degree heat and only a wee splash of rain20on one day. At 110 quid for a week's festival including camping it's pretty good value. Being Scottish I'm thinking already, what's the catch? You enter the Island festival site via an old wooden tram bridge that looks like it's not seen any trams for 50 or so years. Once inside the first thing I pick up is a free detailed festival guide that's available in every possible European language I can think of. It's jammed full of info and lets me plan my non music part of the week.

Five minute walk through mature trees and I look for directions to the camp site. Although according to the map it appears the official campsite is located approx 15 minutes walk away at the other end of the island, it quickly becomes apparent that Europeans who have come from what seems every corner of the continent are not to be tied down to official camping. Basically you can pitch a tent anywhere you want! And I mean any where. During the first few days what seemed like tens of thousands of tents sprung up metres from some of the smaller stages, next to bars, in the middle of thick bushes. What a refreshing feeling to be able to pitch where you choose, the closest I have seen to free camping anywhere. Right, so good so far, but I've got to find some down sides to this place. With shower blocks throu ghout the site and a large variety of toilets, the sanitation, even in 90 degree heat, appears more than adequate. Just think how hellish some of the British festival sites would smell after a week in hot sun?

In the centre of the festival site is what they call the city centre. Here you can go to the post office, buy groceries at a small supermarket, visit a local bank, leave your luggage, visit a pharmacist, get your photos developed, get married (not joking there was a marriage tent and people did get married) or have laundry done via a laundrette service. Again within the central area you can choose from a larger variety of food than you get in most British city centres. From Chinese, Latin to Serbian, Transylvanian, Hungarian, Spanish, American, it was all here in abundance. The only downside was the fact that most of the central European fare centred round large foot long sausages. Still they were quality compared to the nosh I usually have at a festival.

Most of the food is between 3 and 7 quid, but for the top end price you get a full quality meal that will really fill you up. With stomach full I ventured to the beer stall. There again was a variety of bars comparable to a British city centre ranging from trendy over 21 dance bars with grim faced 6 foot five inch me at heads on the door, grungy student type bars with car tyres as seats, to trendy cocktail bars selling what looked to me like the sort of bucket that I might give to my five year old to take to the beach, except his would not be filled to the brim with Cuban mojito with four foot long straws and topped off with enough crushed limes quarters to fill an Asda family pack.



As much as I wanted one of those rum cocktails I stuck to the beer as I would not have been able to review anything after one of those babies. Add to the fact that I had my kids with me and there were enough activities to match a weekend trip to Centre parks (except at Sziget it's all free). As for the beer - it was pretty good from the taps at around at a maximum of £1.50 a pint - really good value compared to what I am used to. I also in the spirit of review sampled the local Hungarian wine (that my dad kept going on about). It was a bit sweet for my liking and the annoying thing was that out of the six times I purchased wine over the week for my wife or myself, I got charged six different prices for similar amounts.

This just goes to show that you have to be careful. I get the feeling that in Hungary generally there is a tendency to view western Europeans as rich and fair game. Before I got into the festival I was subject to several attempted rip off's, most notably on our first night in Hungry when a local corner shop owner tried to charge me 20 quid=2 0for a bottle of plonk in amongst all my other basic food stuffs. Be warned and be on your guard if you go but don't let it put you off.

I've purposely not even mentioned the music yet and I don't intend to for a while as there is so many other things to cover first.



So what apart from music can you do at Sziget? It caters for all ages Some of the activities I will mention are for kids but adults can enjoy them also. Take pottery for example. Where at a UK festival could you make a pot under the guidance of a potter using a wheel? On a previous visit to Hungary I found out they were as a nation obsessed by logic puzzles. So it should come as no surprise that there was a puzzles tent where you could sit and engage your mind in everything from complex relations of the Rubik's cube to tangled wheel puzzles that I would not solve in a lifetime.

After enduring two hours of my wife and kids glued to the puzzles I dragged them away to the Latin village where we danced the morning away to salsa class and watched in awe as a Brazilian martial arts/dance group led approximately 50 festival goers through moves. That aside, you could visit Moroccan tea rooms, join in an African coffee making ceremony or for anyone with an ounce of energy left join once more in dancing as the samba class kicked off. Just as well that the many fans who surround every bar in the Latin village also spray you with a fine mist of water to keep you cool.

There was a travelling circus area, a massive water puppet theatre from Vietnam, public art displays, giant play parks for the kids and the large fat drunk Germans who could not resist them (no offence but they really were all large boned Germans who had consumed too much beer).

I still think I am scraping the surface with activities you can do at Sziget. You will have to go yourself to discover it. Just take this fact on board; there is something different going on round every corner. I really think you would need a couple of weeks to really get to know this place.

One other thing worth mentioning, just because I've never seen anything like it in the UK was the Sports Terrace. Again this catered for all ages. From a tent offering free 20 minute massages (the whole week was booked up on day one) to 40 foot climbing walls, massive trampolines, beach volleyball, beach football, beach volleyball table tennis, arm wrestling machines, basketball, and a large mechanised kayak machine it was all going on and without you having to put your hand in your pocket once.



So to sum up I found Sziget to be a great experience as did my wife and two kids (aged 7 and 5). The music at this festival (covered in music review) is definitely secondary to everything else that's going on. Compared to British festivals the line up is comparatively weak, however if you look at the experience as a whole its well worth the trip.

All the extra activities laid on at this festival could be incorporated into the UK festival scene to add significantly to the experience. However as the mainstream festival scene in the UK is now so commercially minded it is extremely unlikely that the organisers would do so.

Go experience this place before the multi national sponsors turn it into a clone of the rest. The funny thing was most of the Hungarians I spoke to complained that their festival is so commercial these days. I had a little chuckle to myself at this as I compared my week's lack of commercialism to my recent experiences at T, V and the others back home.

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