Joe's Big Toe

Click here to hear some of the main reas­ons we’re excited about Szi­get — a first for JBT — an art­icle with a soundtrack!

Szi­get is a music fest­ival held annu­ally in Bud­apest, Hun­gary. Szi­get lit­er­ally means island (and is pro­nounce “see-get”), and it’s called that because it’s held on an island in the middle of the Danube. Its first incarn­a­tion was as a mainly student-run fest­ival in 1993, and the second, in 1994, was a Wood­stock re-union fest­ival in Europe. Dur­ing the four years since its incep­tion, they must have done some­thing right, because the fest­ival was atten­ded by a quarter of a mil­lion people in 1997. The attend­ance in 1997 was enough to finally recoup the losses made by the first fest­ival in 1993, which were huge. The sup­port of Pepsi between 1996 and 2001 was use­ful fin­an­cially, and in terms of advertising.

Des­pite the huge attend­ance, and pub­li­city work done at the begin­ning of the dec­ade in con­junc­tion with Pepsi, the fest­ival is still rel­at­ively unheard of within the UK. Approx­im­ately 50% of the people attend­ing are Hun­garian, and the second largest group are the French. As time has gone on, how­ever, the num­ber of West­ern Europeans attend­ing has grown, partly for fin­an­cial reas­ons. This year’s fest­ival is excep­tion­ally expens­ive, cost­ing 179€ (c. £150) for a full week with camp­ing. To an aver­age West­ern European, this rep­res­ents approx­im­ately two days work, whereas to an aver­age Hun­garian, it rep­res­ents just over two weeks. There are cheaper tick­ets for those who live in Bud­apest and do not camp, however.

Szi­get prides itself on being an inter­na­tional fest­ival, and this is reflec­ted in the range of artists that per­form, from all over the world. And the fest­ival is not just music either, all sorts of cul­tural events will be tak­ing place, includ­ing poker games, theatre, amongst a whole host of others.

Bud­apest (pro­nounced Bud­apesht, in the local ver­nacu­lar) is an excit­ing, bust­ling city, and from what I’ve heard, never more so than dur­ing the week or so of Sziget.

Find out more about the fest­ival (and buy your tick­ets!) here, and visit skyscanner.org to find flights (note: I don’t have any con­nec­tion to sky­scan­ner other than hav­ing used it myself. I bought my tick­ets through WizzAir, who seemed to be doing a pretty good deal from Lon­don Luton, but other budget flights are avail­able from RyanAir, easyJet and Jet2).