Sziget 2009
Sziget Festival (August) was great, it was a change to go a festival that was hot for the entire time I was there. I think the whole thing was a breath of fresh air really. Only myself and Paula went, which I suppose is the biggest difference to any other festival I’ve been to as usually I would be camping with several other people I know (it was a welcome oppertunity to spend some time with Paula anyway.)
I had been to every Download since it’s inception and I have been to Leeds Festival and Reading Festival a few times so I was looking forward to seeing how foreigners might do it all better. The judgement: they indeed do it better and I will be happy to explain.
Hot Weather – Any country knows how to do better weather than us… Budapest’s temperatures exceeded 30 celcius at times which made it important for…..
Cheap Beer - 450Ft (which is roughly £1.50) which was great way to attempt to cool down with. Most English festivals charge at least £4 a pint – and then that’s usually Carling crap label.
Decent Toliets – Real flushing toilets that were cleaned several times day & night not portaloos that get tipped over by some drunk yobs while you’re in them.
Food – Huge selection of food outlets offering different (and interesting local foods) not just Pizza and Burger. (Although, If you ever do go to Hungary be sure to try a Langos, it’s basically deep-fried batter smeared with sour cream and sprinkled with cheese)
Situation – Somewhere decent to wonder off to if you want to do something for the morning before the music starts. They ran a ferry service up and down the Danube to the middle of the capital, so you were never very far from a very beautiful city with a lot to offer. Alot of festival grounds reside outside of any major cities and generally speaking you stay mostly isolated at the festival (unless you are doing a booze run to the local supermarket)
Open - You could set up camp pretty much where you wanted, up a tree, by the banks of the river, by the main arena or by the 24hr party tent. The stage areas were always open – you could hang around in the mornings and catch the bands sounds testing.
Bars – Loads of bars playing music with benches and tables to sit at, usually there was only ever a maximum of one person in front of you in the queue.
Festival – a whole seven days of music.
There are a few negetive points too: The music acts were not all exactly my genre of choice (although saying this when I go to Download I usually find myself only watching a handful of bands anyway.) The other negative is that fesitvals are supposed to social things too. The more friends you have on your camp site the better your experiance will be and because it’d be a logistics nightmare there’s no chance of getting everyone at Sziget. I think I missed the stupid antics and immature atmosphere of British festivals and my friends.
Birdseye of Sziget
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He works full time in IT and spends his evenings feeding the farm that is his home has become. Mark loves playing Ultimate every now and again, toying with his camera and has just started scuba diving.
