Sziget 2023

[kristofm]

13 minutes ago, activean said:

How did Arlo Parks get to play second down on Main stage? It's empty 

Think he's big in the uk? Got mercury award and stuff. But the whole thing today... Island of Freedome back at it again though, that stage rocks.

[sandorbeni]

19 minutes ago, activean said:

How did Arlo Parks get to play second down on Main stage? It's empty 

I was thinking about the same thing when they released the schedule.

She even said that this is by far the biggest stage she's ever played on

[activean]

Nothing against her, but we have M83 and NBT that are arguably bigger on second stage... A bit weird. 

 

 

[eyebrain]

Just speculating, but maybe either a request from Mumford or both M83 and NBT requested “dark” set.

[Akujin]

On 8/12/2023 at 12:21 PM, Akujin said:

They will probably leave it empty. It’s tok late. Unless it’s a Hungarian band. He is still on the app tho.

Called it… It’s funny tho, they waited with the announcement till today to make it look like it’s completely last minute.

or maybe they were actually looking for a solution till now and I’m just being too negative.

 

Great festival so far tho!

[Newjem]

19 minutes ago, Akujin said:

Called it… It’s funny tho, they waited with the announcement till today to make it look like it’s completely last minute.

or maybe they were actually looking for a solution till now and I’m just being too negative.

 

Great festival so far tho!

They didn’t wait with the announcement, it’s Yung Lean (and his management) who cancelled last minute.

[Tinsel19]

1 hour ago, Newjem said:

They didn’t wait with the announcement, it’s Yung Lean (and his management) who cancelled last minute.

They knew he was not playing at least 4-5 days ago. Or at the very least, knew there was a very strong chance he'd pull out after the Grape Festival cancellation. I understand that Sziget didn't want to pay for a replacement because the management are tight f**kers, but announcing it on the morning of the event when people have travelled is just wrong.

Edited August 15, 2023 by Tinsel19

[Newjem]

5 minutes ago, Tinsel19 said:

They knew he was not playing at least 4-5 days ago. Or at the very least, knew there was a very strong chance he'd pull out after the Grape Festival cancellation. I understand that Sziget didn't want to pay for a replacement because the management are tight f**kers, but announcing it on the morning of the event when people have travelled is just wrong.

If they announced it earlier without managements consent, they would have to pay the whole fee. It would be considered as a cancellation from the festival. It’s f*cked up but it is what it is. Just a lesson to not book acts like him next time.

[sandorbeni]

They should've asked Finneas to do a solo set in Yung Lean's slot

[Akujin]

What were your favourite acts at Sziget this year?

For me the top 10 in no particualr order:

Yungblud (exception as it is the clear number 1)

Bonobo

Moderat

Billie

Nothing But Thieves

M83

Krubi

Chris Avantgarde

Imagine Dragons

Besh O Drom

[#1SzigetFan]

1. Amyl & the Sniffers

2. Billie Eilish

3. Stain The Canvas

4. Loyle Carner

5. Foals

6. Tom Grennan

7. Yungblud

8. Bamba Wassoulou Groove

9. Moderat

10. Kommuna Lux

[Akujin]

6 minutes ago, #1SzigetFan said:

1. Amyl & the Sniffers

2. Billie Eilish

3. Stain The Canvas

4. Loyle Carner

5. Foals

6. Tom Grennan

7. Yungblud

8. Bamba Wassoulou Groove

9. Moderat

10. Kommuna Lux

I can’t believe I missed Loyle Carner… it was far too packed after Yungblud and since my wife is pregnant we didn’t want to risk shuffling through the crowd back and forth before Imagine Dragons. Oh well, I hope he comes back at some point.

[dolevshelly]

it was my 2/5 best sziget this year!

the people were great, decorations came back, great activities and some great shows.

 

with that being said, i found most of the partys were techno (which i hate), the food and merch prices insane, and it felt like the line up was weaker even on stages like the circus + there is almost nothing new to see or do from last year.

 

personly, i didnt find this year line up strong enogh, i still remember the date change (after i booked flight and hotel), and how expansive budapest become.

i dont think i'll book my tickets again unless there will be an amazing line up.

[Deckard]

My ten favourites

Foals

Imagine Dragons

Ben Bohmer

Moderat

M83

Caroline Polachek

Amyl and the Sniffers

Sven Vath

Confidence Man

The Mary Wallopers

[eyebrain]

Not even sure where to start from.. so much things I want to say.

It was my 8th Sziget and for the first time I am back home without having the famous “Sziget cough”. During last two days you could occasionally feel the dust, but it was clear they had put a lot of work into trying to keep it minimal. Arriving at the festival it was all very green. There was, again, loads of different solutions for ground moistening. What was new and really helped were trucks that drove around main streets pouring water on it. They helped against those annoying scooters pulling dust up.

We’ve been coming early for years now with moving-in ticket. I just want to point out that I think paying 65€ just to come a day / two days earlier while there’s nothing else to do than get drunk is unreasonably expensive. I wonder what is Sziget’s approach to this? Do they WANT people to come or actually is this a counter-measure? Who knows..

As mentioned in earlier post we stumbled on the build-up of secret party, which was cool. It meant we were first to enter when it opened, got to enjoy it in empty glory without anybody knowing. And we got hats saying we were there! I had a little chat with guys running it. Turns out they are some Belgian dudes who just pitched it to Sziget years ago, this time they were invited back. They are just friends, DJs playing are themselves. Very fun guys! Of course at one point it got so popular that they asked Sziget if they could get security at the door. Not so secret anymore.

I’d say generally food was great, like.. 7 places out of 10 delivered. It did feel like there was a lot of options, but still.. after 3-4 days you’re gonna struggle finding anything new and interesting. You don’t want to eat bread all day. Thanks kristofm for recommendations here, Smokey monkeys was just AMAZING. Pricing of food felt too high for Hungary. It was cheaper to eat at Glastonbury. You can feel that it really affected people and it is definitely going to drive some people away from the festival. I can’t see them forcing lower prices, but they have to figure something out. That 2500HUF deal did not work out as they wanted, these options were a joke. 

Now comes something I can’t believe I’m saying. They way they did toilets this year is probably the best I’ve seen at any festival ever. It was cleaned regularly, meaning you almost always got a cleanish toilet seat. There was paper. There were enough toilets for crowds. Urinals were amazing as they did not feel nasty due to a bit of privacy and there was a place to put your drink. Past years if something broke at the toilet complex, it usually was broken until the end. This year it was clear everything was being fixed as quick as possible. We stayed at Sziget Ville, there was not a single time I waited for showers or toilets. There was cleaning 24/7. Showers did miss basic necessities like a place to put your things to.. 

Sziget Ville was not crowded anymore due to regular tents not being allowed in. Perfect location, close to everything. We had a private DJ-area as well.. which literally nobody cared about. But i absolutely recommend it. 

Everybody seems to know about the bar with much cheaper prices now. We’ve been drinking there for years, but crowds have gone too big this year, not worth the wait in queue 😞 Did not wait more than few minutes at any other bar through-out the festival, even at main stage during headliners.

Don’t know about Billie Eilish, but Billie Eyelash and rest of the Magic Mirror Queenz show girls were amazing. Magic Mirror once again managed to book an amazing program. , Magic Drag Brunch was great as well. Stand-up comedy was hit-and-miss but Ria Lina was one of the best stand-ups i’ve seen for years.

Most of circus and theatre we saw was good. I love Traveling Funfair, I hope they never get rid of it! ArtZone is great entertainment during the day, there is actually so much casual stuff to do. I did not have any music to see at DropYard, but for the second year in a row, all star dance battle was the thing to witness. The sun killed me tho. I have to give shoutout to living statues as well, although I think last years were a bit more stunning. 🙂

And I still have not gotten to music yet. Everybody else discusses it anyway. 🙂 M83 was my top favorite. I had chills and girls with us were literally crying. Great stuff. They need to figure out something with Europe Stage, current way of booking is just not attractive enough for audiences. I do understand a need for mission-projects like this or Global Village, but there is something missing, not sure what it is.

Anyway, I really think there are only two large-scale festivals in Europe that manage to put together such an in-depth program. Glastonbury and Sziget. Sziget is huge, but a great small alternative to Glastonbury. We do compare Sziget here to a lot of festivals regarding music line-ups, which I do agree with - they are not always competitive enough with regular arena-type festivals. But that’s the thing - Sziget is not a regular arena festival. It’s a completely different experience. I do feel like a lot of visitors are missing out cause they're not putting much effort into finding out what's going on.

Sziget is for people who go for overall festival experience. And they nailed it this year.

[kristofm]

The most important thing for me to mention is how great the festival looked like.

It’s not only the lights and all the decorations (they were beautiful!) but also it was clean, it seemed like the organizers poured a good amount of money on that, there was soap available, toilet paper, great toilets. It’s important to have good toilets on a 6 day bender.

People were okay, I’m a bit sorry that I wasn’t really active in meeting new friends and stuff but the agenda was quite packed, I already went with a group of friends (who are rather introverts) and stuff. I did talk to a few Dutch and Slovenian people and they were amazing. Everyone was brilliant.

Most of the concerts were great too, Yungblud is still a crazy little creature. Probably the best gig I’ve attended this whole year.

A huge high five for Call Me Karizma, he was my biggest surprise. Frank Carter was great too.

Hugs to Girl in Red, she seemed super awkward but in an adorable way. I really liked her gig, but the atmosphere could’ve been better, the crowd didn’t seem to know her at all, that was annoying. It was great from her when she paused when fans were injured and she barely got an applause for that, that seemed a but unfair. Few people clapped and that was it, though it was a really cool moment from her.

Baby Queen and Destroy Boys were also great, I’ve known them a bit but didn’t know what to expect, good gigs.

The negative ones were probably… Well, at Amyl and the Sniffers I could barely hear the music, everything was super noisy, even the bass seemed “high”, that kinda ruined it for me, although based on what I’ve read it could be that I was just standing in the wrong place. Next time I’ll walk around in that tent so maybe I can find better spots for my ears. I also went to Viagra Boys but it was a bit boring for me for some reason so I left early. Foals were okay but I’m pretty much only into their first album and they played like one song from that one, but that’s, again, not about their quality, it’s about my taste only.

Billie was okay, I’ve never seen her perform but somehow it was exactly what I expected. Wasn’t incredible but it was a good show, I had a fairly good time.

But overall, as always, I had a very good time. Last year was a bit scary with all the decorations removed and with constant dust in my face, this year the island looked beautiful, had a great atmosphere, it’s very easy to fall in love with this festival again and again. Let’s just forget about last year.

The only thing I could wish for is a little bit better line up, but again, that’s not about the quality, it’s just that sometimes I couldn’t really find indie/rock/punk music (especially in the Guetta day).

I think Hungarian additions to the bigger stages is a wise move from the organizers, I think we’ll see more Hungarians in key positions next year, maybe one Hungarian performer each day at the main stage. It’s a lot cheaper than getting someone from Britain or the USA, while the crowd was about as big. Especially if you’ve got a big headliner, at least one Hungarian will get a spot (like Carson Coma + Imagine Dragons or Dzsúdló + Billie Eilish). I think there's a good chance of Azahriah as a subheadliner playing ahead of a big USA/UK pop headliner (that's based on just rumours I've heard, nothing more).

Buying my full festival ticket tomorrow for next year, that’s the biggest complement I can give, and the best way to say thank you for this week.

(Also because tomorrow there’s a huge discount haha)

[kristofm]

@eyebrain I agree with pretty much everything you've said here!

Btw I only saw the Smokey Monkies price list on one of the last days, quite expensive. I forgot to add that they've got their own place 10 mins from the bridge with "outside world" prices (which is still relatively high but the stuff you pay 7500 HUF at Sziget costs 4500 HUF at their "restaurant" and they've got a bigger variety of food there). But anyway, glad you liked it!  

The best food I had this year was an asian bbq burger at Crunchy, 3500 HUF (9 euros?) and it was an okay sized chicken burger. The queue at aldi went surprisingly fast, it took them a while to cook my food but that 2000 HUF for tons of chicken and pastry was a great deal also.

Also, yeah, 10 years agó Csónakház was great, where you can buy cheaper beer. Used to be an even better kept secret than the toilet party! But now it's crowded all the time. Do you know what were their prices this year for beer?

3 hours ago, eyebrain said:

 

Sziget is for people who go for overall festival experience. And they nailed it this year.

That's the main thing. 100%. Everyone should know that having a good line up at Sziget is just the cherry on top. It's the festival itself that's worth visiting.

Edited August 17, 2023 by kristofm

[dolevshelly]

i forgot one more thing, the tribute stage can be such a great stage, but it's too small for the abba or queen shows, and you cant get close thanks to that statues and cant figure out what is goin on stage becouse there's a party 50 meters from it.

[eyebrain]

6 hours ago, kristofm said:

 

The negative ones were probably… Well, at Amyl and the Sniffers I could barely hear the music, everything was super noisy, even the bass seemed “high”, that kinda ruined it for me, although based on what I’ve read it could be that I was just standing in the wrong place. Next time I’ll walk around in that tent so maybe I can find better spots for my ears.

I had issues with FreeDome as well, as long as I was standing closer to the stage it was good, otherwise really bad. Then i started checking... I don't think they had speaker delay towers on at any show... really odd...

 

6 hours ago, kristofm said:

Also, yeah, 10 years agó Csónakház was great, where you can buy cheaper beer. Used to be an even better kept secret than the toilet party! But now it's crowded all the time. Do you know what were their prices this year for beer?

 

Cheapest beer was 900 HUF, Dreher was 1100 HUF. XL Spritzer was around 1700 HUF if I remember correctly. 

[kristofm]

Best strategies for post-festival depression?
I'm going on a bunch of holidays from September and I thought that will help but not really. 😅

[swelsbyuk]

Why do we think they've introduced the 21 and under pricing?

179 euro for a 6 day ticket is insane (sadly I miss the age range by about 30 years).

[kristofm]

13 minutes ago, swelsbyuk said:

Why do we think they've introduced the 21 and under pricing?

179 euro for a 6 day ticket is insane (sadly I miss the age range by about 30 years).

In Hungary you can go to Sziget with your student card and get about the same discount. This could be an easy way of making this kind of discount international without having to bother to create a system of accepting different types of student cards from all the different countries.

Edited August 17, 2023 by kristofm

[bunnyv]

The only thing I’m sad about regarding this week is that SG Lewis barely played any of his great tracks. Can’t wait for Leaks to appear again.

[activean]

The main organiser of the Sziget Festival has expressed satisfaction with this year's attendance of some 420,000 festival-goers, despite it falling short of last year's figures by around 30,000.

Considering 2022 had visitors from the cancelled 2020 edition this might be OK. And after all the bad reviews and experiences from last year, many decided not to come back.

 

About 2023: After a bittersweet experience last year, I had great time this year. Perfect weather and no dust + better organization.

+ 

New toilets are on another level

Decorations

Things like secret party, party bus, water points around the island etc.

It was clean. kudos to all stuff collecting trash all the time

Many small improvements, production upgrades .. 

Almost no artist cancellations, less queues at bars and entrance 

Better timelines, many unofficial stages, like a huge Coca Cola stage across the main stage ...resulted as the audience was more spread out across the island, not stuck at the main stage like last year.

 

-

The prices. It is getting expensive even for western europe countries. The 30% price rise per year has to stop somehow or the festival will be interesting to less and less markets. It seemed already this year that foreign visitors were in the majority from Netherlands and UK and like several individuals from other countries. I'm caricaturing a bit, but if it continues in this direction, it won't work in the long term. And you need locals, you need local support. The 25% inflation in Hungary doesn't help with the prices, I know:/

The K-Bridge and exit on friday. An hour queue just to exit. Ok no problem, but what if something happens, like fire? The bridge is also in a bad condition so they don't let more people on it at once. Upgrade much needed.

New Europe stage place is spacious, but very marginal. Some strong names there that could be at freedome as well played in front of a relatively small crowd. It was probably meant to relieve crowd from center of the island but you simply don't pass by there and stop if it's interesting. Maybe it was still better that way, but often some random dude at Global village played in front of more people 😄

 

a few more observations:

- Crowd seems to be more laid back and chill compared to last year, at least from my experiences. 

- IMO lineup was at around the same level as 2022, It just comes down to a matter of personal taste which is better.

- In general the concerts were actually good, hardly any disappointments. More positive surprises. 

[branvan]

They did a big step forward. All was green at the beginning, and the dust was ok like this. Much much better than last year. The ground looked nice, the toilets have been enough and clean, and there is such diversity with having the Global Village with bands from everywhere. 

The only thing i didn't like was the Music Box being overbassed from the Collessium. They had such gread artists there like ISE, Amistat or Charlie Cunningham, Festivalhighlights for me, and important to Sziget that there is as well place for this accoustic music. It was very strange hearing Amistat/Charlie Cunningham including the sound from the Collosseum. They must find another place for the Music Box, maybe somewhere totally new, just after the entrace, where it is not this loud. 

My three favourite concerts: 1 M83, 2 Ben Böhmer, 3 The Haunted Youth