Sziget 2023

[kitkat129]

1 hour ago, jkerr4412 said:

I think the Boygenius one is the most surprising. Really feels like someone's seriously dropped the ball to not have them there. Pretty available in Europe for the dates, exciting, relevant and probably reasonably cheap for their slot. Thought it was nailed on 

There is absolutely nothing surprising about Boygenius not being on the lineup, they are completely unknown in Hungary and probably the organizers don't know them either, we are at least a decade behind the rest of Europe here and the line-up reflects that perfectly every year.  

[clasher]

1 minute ago, #1SzigetFan said:

I think you will easily find cheaper tickets on ticketswap than on the official website because of this "stellar" lineup

I sadly already have the Sun-Tue ticket (bought before the last price rice). Not planning on selling, but buying cheaper on ticketswap would be the better way to go.

Day 1 is stacked, but 2&3 are abysmal. 4-6 is still the best three days for me, Budapest isn't that far, I'll have fun and there's still enough music to keep me entertained, it's just there's so many festivals nowadays with really nice lineups in the 150/170€ range that one could hardly justify flying to Sziget I think.

It would be a shame if Sziget went the Exit way.

[Akujin]

Has Sziget clarified if indeed Macklemore will be in the later spot or if that’s an error?

[jkerr4412]

7 minutes ago, kitkat129 said:

There is absolutely nothing surprising about Boygenius not being on the lineup, they are completely unknown in Hungary and probably the organizers don't know them either, we are at least a decade behind the rest of Europe here and the line-up reflects that perfectly every year.  

fair enough, makes sense. i do feel like similar was said of sam fender and the leap was made for him 

[kitkat129]

43 minutes ago, Cranjis said:

This might be a hot take, but I really do not care who is playing at Sziget. whoever they book will be plenty of fun because the vibe of people at Sziget is sooo good. Far better than any other festival I've been to

yeah I think the headliners kinda suck, but no way im going a year without Sziget. its an incredible festival and I don't get anything like it in America except for maybe Bonnaroo. 

This is also the reason why it feels like the organizers just look at a random Spotify playlist and choose randomly which artists to book for the festival, tickets will sell anyway because of "the vibe" even if they put zero effort into the lineup... Don't get me wrong, I had a good time when I was there last time, but it's still supposed to be a music festival and if you're charging that much for the tickets, one could expect a lineup that is a little bit more inspired, there's so much potential wasted, especially if you're a local like me (a lot of artists avoid touring around here and Sziget would be the perfect opportunity to book many trending, interesting artists, but no... we need to have Macklemore and David Guetta :/)

[UnBiloTitled]

Good lord, people are disappointed and upset. It seems like I'm pretty much alone in the "this isn't such a bad lineup"-corner. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion. It's okay for people to be disappointed. But people seem to think it's very easy to just bring in the biggest bands/artists, and it certainly isn't. Negotiations with major world artists can go on for several months and result in absolutely nothing but wasted time.

I myself usually complain about bad lineups, but honestly, what Sziget is presenting now is good. It's solid. Considering that almost all European festivals this year have really weak lineups, I really think Sziget has managed to present a well-approved lineup.

Is it what I expected? No.
Is it what I hoped for? No, not that either.
Is it objectively a good lineup that will attract people? Yes, I want to believe so.
Will people who go there have a good, enjoyable and fun festival? Without a doubt.
Try to focus on the positive. You will have a blast no matter what lineup is presented. Trust me.

[Matt86]

6 hours ago, Newjem said:

They’ve swapped them at the request of @Matt86 😅

Told ya ! 😜

 

 

Anyway, I had all day to think over this line up.. I've looked at every previous Sziget line up I've been to, and this is clearly THE WORST. (the best being 2014 and 2022, to me)

Even if I've never heard of maybe 20 names (I'll give it a try of course), to see the combination of weak headliners like Mumford, Florence, Macklemore and Lorde is a failure. If we only had ONE of them as headliners, okay... but 4 !? ..... (P.S : I like Lorde and Macklemore, 'will definitely attend lol, don't say " it's because you don't like them !", I do like them ^^ )

I'm now going to pay attention at the "unknown" artists lol, by listenning to them ^^ But I can already see, thanks to other fests', that many great and confirmed artists were available... Sziget just made the choice not to get them, for the benefit of perhaps cheaper artists... yeah, we know that's true.

You better redecorate that Bridge guys .... and put on a MASSIVE line up for 2024 and the 30th anniversary.

 

[Akujin]

Even in the app, it seems clear that Lorde is the “main headliner” this is very odd.

[Nicklord]

It's not really, L comes before M and they projected it for one headliner 

[Akujin]

46 minutes ago, Nicklord said:

It's not really, L comes before M and they projected it for one headliner 

She has doubble the size of tile but you think it doesn’t look like she is the main headliner? 
 

It would have been zero effort to make it the same size tile. None of the others are in alphabetical order. And even if they were, alphabetical order would only make sense if they were the same size.

[FestivalJamie]

1 minute ago, Akujin said:

She has doubble the size of tile but you think it doesn’t look like she is the main headliner? 
 

It would have been zero effort to make it the same size tile. None of the others are in alphabetical order. And even if they were, alphabetical order would only make sense if they were the same size.

Agreed. It’s clear she’s the main headliner for that day and that makes perfect sense as well. 
 

Is it possible they have just made a mistake regarding set times? Although they have posted it on Facebook and Instagram. I’m still struggling to get my ahead around how she doesn’t have the closing set. 

[activean]

1 minute ago, FestivalJamie said:

Agreed. It’s clear she’s the main headliner for that day and that makes perfect sense as well. 
 

Is it possible they have just made a mistake regarding set times? Although they have posted it on Facebook and Instagram. I’m still struggling to get my ahead around how she doesn’t have the closing set. 

Agree, clearly she is the main name. 

I'm thinking more it could be for tehnical reasons, traveling etc. 

[FestivalJamie]

10 minutes ago, activean said:

Agree, clearly she is the main name. 

I'm thinking more it could be for tehnical reasons, traveling etc. 

Macklemore is in France the day before so maybe they are allowing extra time for him to travel in case of any delays? Lorde hasn’t got any dates announced the day before so maybe they thought that would be less time pressure that way round.

Although it’s still not clear to me why they then couldn’t have adapted the set times and given lorde 1hr30 and Macklemore 1hr15 afterwards anyway. I only really remember him coming on for an hour in 2019. 

Edited March 15, 2023 by FestivalJamie

[activean]

[Yelo, the Parmiggiana]

14 hours ago, clasher said:

It would be a shame if Sziget went the Exit way.

That is the way they are taking, tho. Such a shame.

 

I find harder and harder to sympathize with those saying "I go to Sziget for the party and the good vibes". As an avid goer in the pre-covid era, I can tell that the general mood is less characteristic, the artists are always the same and generally speaking the pizzaz of the whole festival experience is lacking. Only thing improving (as in "rising") are the prices.

On one hand I understand and justify the financial aspect: covid made festivals harder to sustain and that must have an impact on the visitors, I get it. 

On the other hand, though, I cannot miss to think that the last time Sziget made a breakthrough lineup, where they found artists bound to become big before they actually made it (Stromae and Bonobo in A38, Imagine Dragons and Bastille at 17.00 in the Main Stage). After that, specifically after Dan Painatescu passed away, the artistic direction has taken a lazy turn, and we are here, with:

- Macklemore 3rd time headlining, 4th appearence (2014, 17, 19)

- Mumford & Sons, 2nd time headlining (2018)

- David Guetta, 2nd time headlining (2015)

- Florence + The Machine, 3rd time headlining. (2015, 2019)

The only ones saved from this analysis are Imagine Dragons (2nd appearence, tho), Lorde (not really headliner material for anywhere outside Primavera) and Billie Eilish.

And bear in mind: Billie Eilish was a new sensation in 2019, nowadays it has been fully critically acclaimed and recognized, so Sziget is really taking no risk in the booking - same goes for Girl in Red and Yungblud (also present in 2019): yeah, they are the new generation, but nothing to write home about for their eccentricity, nowadays - Yungblud has 3 LP out, and Girl in Red only one, but she has been doing festivals since 2018 maybe.

This pattern is also similar to the last year's one, where we had Dua Lipa (2nd appearence, 2018), Kings of Leon (2nd appearence, 2015), Calvin Harris (2nd appearence, 2014) and Arctic Monkeys (2nd appearence, 2018).

This should be enough to critic a festival that basically increased it's price tag by over 150% in 10 years, with evident diminishing investments / poor investments made in the artistic and logistic departments (2022), but wait, I am only looking at the "countable" portion of the festival - making assumption on economics, agent networking and so on.

There is another huge elephant in the room that needs to be addressed that is a direct consequence of the artistic "lazyness": when that the music variety plummets, the crowd variety plummets as well.

When metal/rock acts (more generally, underground genres) disappeared from the festival the first thing I noticed was that the crowd was lacking on metalheads, punks, weirdos, experimental freak, so on and so forth, which REALLY made the festival breath.

Sziget 2014 and prior were something else because you had the chance to experience a variety of music and a variety of people in every possible scenario, without question asked. Now you still can, I mean, nobody prohibits it, but the problem is that you have no longer the tools to make such experiences, as the crowd is less edgy, in any possible sense.

They tried to make a european Coachella, but they have completely missed on the artistic direction so far, and this will eventually lead to a new Exit Festival as a main, possible scenario.

[Newjem]

13 minutes ago, activean said:

Lmao, Imagine Dragons selling faster than Billie…

[Nicklord]

2 minutes ago, Newjem said:

Lmao, Imagine Dragons selling faster than Billie…

I have no idea when they got SO big. They sold out Letňany twice last year, 115k went to see them there over 2 days

[eyebrain]

I don't know, I guess it's above avarege set of headliners and the issue is maybe in me. Definitely feels like I've been going to too many festivals and there's not much headliners left who would feel new and unique to me.. But I do have to say that this is going to be my 8th Sziget and this is going to be 4th time Macklemore performs at the festival. That's a good statistic to reflect my disappointment. 

Then again if you look at Sziget's festival evaluations https://drive.google.com/file/d/1WCWEgRvJck8QFfT8AASyW2NwlrEGPebI/view

Very interesting numbers there, most importantly, only 25% of their visitors are returning. So who cares if I'm seeing Macklemore for 4th time? With my 8th time I'm probably 2-3% of people. 

75% of their clients buy tickets for the festival itself (including me)

What's really interesting there is that 57% of their visitors come with daily tickets, 25% of them with 6-day tickets and 11% with 3-day tickets. For me this proves the need for bigger names to keep selling daily tickets.

Plus it does not make a lot of sense to me that if 75% of people come for the festival itself, 57% of them buy only a daily ticket? 

[matrainertje]

15 hours ago, kitkat129 said:

There is absolutely nothing surprising about Boygenius not being on the lineup, they are completely unknown in Hungary and probably the organizers don't know them either, we are at least a decade behind the rest of Europe here and the line-up reflects that perfectly every year.  

Yeah with Macklemore somehow doing big slots. I get that in 2014, 2016 maybe but not in 2023. 

Edited March 15, 2023 by matrainertje

[dolevshelly]

tale of us added. 

are we getting more name(s) soon?

@Sziget2023_Leaks

[ReljaGajić]

1 minute ago, dolevshelly said:

tale of us added. 

are we getting more name(s) soon?

@Sziget2023_Leaks

They were announced yesterday with the lineup

[thetime]

2 hours ago, Yelo, the Parmiggiana said:

That is the way they are taking, tho. Such a shame.

 

I find harder and harder to sympathize with those saying "I go to Sziget for the party and the good vibes". As an avid goer in the pre-covid era, I can tell that the general mood is less characteristic, the artists are always the same and generally speaking the pizzaz of the whole festival experience is lacking. Only thing improving (as in "rising") are the prices.

On one hand I understand and justify the financial aspect: covid made festivals harder to sustain and that must have an impact on the visitors, I get it. 

On the other hand, though, I cannot miss to think that the last time Sziget made a breakthrough lineup, where they found artists bound to become big before they actually made it (Stromae and Bonobo in A38, Imagine Dragons and Bastille at 17.00 in the Main Stage). After that, specifically after Dan Painatescu passed away, the artistic direction has taken a lazy turn, and we are here, with:

- Macklemore 3rd time headlining, 4th appearence (2014, 17, 19)

- Mumford & Sons, 2nd time headlining (2018)

- David Guetta, 2nd time headlining (2015)

- Florence + The Machine, 3rd time headlining. (2015, 2019)

The only ones saved from this analysis are Imagine Dragons (2nd appearence, tho), Lorde (not really headliner material for anywhere outside Primavera) and Billie Eilish.

And bear in mind: Billie Eilish was a new sensation in 2019, nowadays it has been fully critically acclaimed and recognized, so Sziget is really taking no risk in the booking - same goes for Girl in Red and Yungblud (also present in 2019): yeah, they are the new generation, but nothing to write home about for their eccentricity, nowadays - Yungblud has 3 LP out, and Girl in Red only one, but she has been doing festivals since 2018 maybe.

This pattern is also similar to the last year's one, where we had Dua Lipa (2nd appearence, 2018), Kings of Leon (2nd appearence, 2015), Calvin Harris (2nd appearence, 2014) and Arctic Monkeys (2nd appearence, 2018).

This should be enough to critic a festival that basically increased it's price tag by over 150% in 10 years, with evident diminishing investments / poor investments made in the artistic and logistic departments (2022), but wait, I am only looking at the "countable" portion of the festival - making assumption on economics, agent networking and so on.

There is another huge elephant in the room that needs to be addressed that is a direct consequence of the artistic "lazyness": when that the music variety plummets, the crowd variety plummets as well.

When metal/rock acts (more generally, underground genres) disappeared from the festival the first thing I noticed was that the crowd was lacking on metalheads, punks, weirdos, experimental freak, so on and so forth, which REALLY made the festival breath.

Sziget 2014 and prior were something else because you had the chance to experience a variety of music and a variety of people in every possible scenario, without question asked. Now you still can, I mean, nobody prohibits it, but the problem is that you have no longer the tools to make such experiences, as the crowd is less edgy, in any possible sense.

They tried to make a european Coachella, but they have completely missed on the artistic direction so far, and this will eventually lead to a new Exit Festival as a main, possible scenario.

Alot of good points made, pretty much spot on from a sziget veteran. As you know I go for the 'sziget vibe', that being said that 'vibe' was not there last year. It will be interesting if they try and get it back this year, as a lot of the audience is non Hungarian. 

Some of the majors draws have been cut, you can't really get away from that. We are now down to 6 days, less of the non music stuff which was obvious last year. It is also a lot more expensive than say 2019, a big jump on comparison to other festivals.

Lineups have gone more electronic, cheaper options. Which I find odd as no Volt and the owners already have Balaton.

I was coming this year, but due to work had to pull out. But hey I will probably be back next year. 

[Yelo, the Parmiggiana]

19 minutes ago, thetime said:

Alot of good points made, pretty much spot on from a sziget veteran. As you know I go for the 'sziget vibe', that being said that 'vibe' was not there last year. It will be interesting if they try and get it back this year, as a lot of the audience is non Hungarian. 

Some of the majors draws have been cut, you can't really get away from that. We are now down to 6 days, less of the non music stuff which was obvious last year. It is also a lot more expensive than say 2019, a big jump on comparison to other festivals.

Lineups have gone more electronic, cheaper options. Which I find odd as no Volt and the owners already have Balaton.

I was coming this year, but due to work had to pull out. But hey I will probably be back next year. 

I'm happy to see us on the same boat eventually 🙂

There is nothing wrong or bad in going in a festival for the vibes - not everything has to have a maxed-out ROI in life, and that is a lesson I've been trying to learn this past few years.

That said, I think that anybody who went at least twice  before (possibly pre- and post-pandemic) will recognize that the entire marketing & brand identity of Sziget as "this island of freedom where everything good and bizarre and odd can happen, where everybody can be who they truly experience to be, etc." has solidified especially post-2016. And this is ironic and hypocrite at the same time, as I personally- and in hindsight - consider 2017 the year where the creative decadence actually started ramping up (although I have fond memories of 2018's edition).

Honestly, at this point in time, as an Italian, I consider Sziget too expensive an experience to be worth, especially when I have to pay top bucks and still have to dwell in the lower lines of the lineup to find something actually of interest (and maybe I also have lost the plot or the passion for the task). I hope maybe in many years things will change, but as I said before, I sadly doubt it will.

 

[swelsbyuk]

One for you @Matt86

[eivomracsy]

9 minutes ago, swelsbyuk said:

One for you @Matt86

haven't found ava max on that one 😇