Sziget festival draws 530,000 visitors – UPDATE
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The week-long Sziget festival in northern Budapest’s Óbuda Island drew an estimated 530,000 visitors this year, the organisers said.
That means this year’s attendance will fall short of last year’s record of 565,000 visitors, chief organiser Tamás Kádár said on Tuesday.
The festival’s budget exceeded 10 billion forints (EUR 30.8m), with organisers spending 500 million forints more on headliners than last year, he said.
Among the headliners at this year’s festival were Ed Sheeran, Macklemore, The National, Post Malone, Florence + The Machine, Twenty One Pilots and Foo Fighters.
Overall, the festival featured more than 1,000 artists from 62 countries.
The event attracted visitors from some 100 countries, with most foreigners arriving from the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, France, Germany and Italy.
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A Love Revolution, Sziget uses its power of our community, guided by love, to support causes that could help the planet become a better place. Each day on the mainstage, appearances from the likes of Dr Jane Goodall (UN peace envoy and environmentalist) Emtithal Mahmoud (poet, activist and UNHCR goodwill ambassador) and Al Gore, (former US Vice President, founder of the Climate Reality Project and NGO) whose thoughts were shared through a video message.
With artists appearing across the week including Ed Sheeran, The 1975, Martin Garrix, Richard Ashcroft, 6LACK, Macklemore, James Blake, The National, Mura Masa, Post Malone, Years & Years, Jungle, Florence & The Machine, Catfish & The Bottlemen and the Foo Fighters (to name but a few).
On Instagram after his mainstage set, Macklemore wrote: “75,000 tonight in Budapest at Sziget. THIS IS LIFE & I LOVE YALL. Thank you for giving me this platform to be on stage & do what I’ve always loved. Grateful beyond words.” On twitter, Martin Garrix said: “One of the craziest shows of my life.. thank you @szigetofficial that was magical!”
The Mastercard Stage by A38 brought an eclectic array of fresh artists to its tent with a diverse line-up spreading across rock, pop and electronic genres with A-grade musicians such as Pale Wales, Grace Carter, IAMDDB, Superorganism, Idles, Alma, and a very special spellbinding late-night performance from James Blake.
The Bacardi Arena supplied the creme de la creme of electronic music offerings throughout the week’s festivities, with EDM, Techno, Electro and Trance sounds courtesy of the likes of Tini Gessler, Julian Jordan , Blasterjaxx, Kayzo, Sigala and Jax Jones (live).