Gigs, parties, art, wine: this is what summer looks like at Balaton

With the festival season knocking at our door, lovers of water and concerts might wonder what to do during the summer. Index.hu has compiled a list of things you can do at Lake Balaton.

The MOL Nagyon Balaton festival starts soon, the aim of which is to promote Lake Balaton, to strengthen its popularity and prestige both in Hungary and abroad. Since its launch in 2013, various festivals can be associated with it, such as VeszprémFest, Valley of Arts (Művészetek Völgye), Balaton Sound, Jazz picnic at Paloznak, but new festivals were born as well: STRAND Festival and B.my.Lake. Another key programme of Nagyon Balaton are the ferryboat concerts.

According to Norbert Lobenwein, founder and organiser of MOL Nagyon Balaton, the festival brought over 1 million people to Balaton, and they are expecting even more guests this year. Zoltán Guller, Managing Director of the Hungarian National Tourism Agency, said that bringing together the different programmes and creating a new festival organisation has proved to be a great idea already in the first year, and since, the number of attendees is ever growing. For instance, in September 2016, the number of days spent by the attendants at the festival has grown by 19 percent, compared to the number in the first September.