The Sziget festival “must move forward to break free”, its founder, Károly Gerendai, said on Saturday, the final day of the event. “Based on feedback from the audience and the media, the direction we have outlined is good, but many circumstances were not in our favour, so the numbers did not turn out as we would have liked,” he told Hungarian News Agency MTI.
“Our main goal with this year’s festival was to show where we want to go in the future. The reactions show that this test was a success; almost everyone received our efforts favourably. I think we put on a really good Sziget, which can lay the foundations for an upturn next year,” he stressed.
While last year’s six-day festival attracted 416,000 visitors, this year fewer people, around 350,000–360,000, enjoyed the five-plus-two-day event.
“Last autumn, we suddenly had to take over the festival from the departing foreign owners, and then political disputes almost brought Sziget to an end. In the spring, we were optimistic, but we will fall short of the hoped-for numbers,” Gerendai said.
Under the previous owner, London-based Superstruct Entertainment, last year saw a significant loss of 2.8 billion forints (EUR 7.7m), which this year — described as a “break-even” or “investment” year — had been expected to be reduced to 1.5 billion forints with an estimated 400,000 visitors, a target that was not met.
The founder added that this is a watershed year, and it was a strategic decision to focus on development rather than cutting costs to avoid losses, as this would lay the foundations for a more successful future. Gerendai said there are three main reasons why the projected loss was higher.
“The organisation and ticket sales started with a four-month delay, whereas previously we had sold a third of our tickets during this early period. The strengthening of the forint made the festival more expensive for foreigners, and the third factor was that among Hungarian ticket buyers, the extreme heatwave, drought, and questions about the power supply created a kind of disaster mentality, which dampened the mood for festival-going,” he explained.
This year, the number of Hungarian visitors increased further, now making up 53 percent of the total, while the number of visitors from abroad continued to decline. Although more people came from neighbouring countries, interest in Sziget declined in its major markets: the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Germany, France, and Italy. Israel, Ukraine, and Russia saw a drastic drop due to the wars, and far fewer people came from very distant countries due to rising travel costs.
Gerendai said the decision to involve subcontractors as minority owners in Sziget Ltd had proved successful. He noted that the subcontractors, who have become investors, cover the largest professional areas, including security, cleaning, container, stage, catering, festival infrastructure, lighting, and sound technology companies. “This allows us to have a favourable impact on prices, and also brings in additional expertise, with which we can build a much more professional foundation for construction and development,” he said.
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The involvement of Budapest Park gave the festival’s stage for Hungarian artists a prominent place again, he added.
“Bringing back the Hungarian main stage was a really good decision; the audience liked it. There were time slots when the Hungarian bands playing at the same time as the main stage headliners attracted fewer spectators. It is not certain that it was a good decision to have the Twenty One Pilots and Tankcsapda concerts simultaneously, as they are both in the rock category, but there were also counter-examples,” he added.
Gerendai said this year’s main stage concerts were good, with Twenty One Pilots and SOMBR attracting the most visitors. “Unfortunately, the model favoured by the previous owners, based on selling tickets with a strong headline line-up, is working less and less, because many major European festivals can offer strong line-ups. Sziget’s future cannot be based on this alone; at an international level, we need other factors that can make the festival uniquely attractive,” he said.
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Among Sziget’s strengths, he said it offered a more diverse cultural experience than most festivals: a multidisciplinary programme, a holiday atmosphere, a unique community experience, good value for money, and Budapest as a world city.
“We will be successful again when we can strengthen our international position, and to do this, we need to rebuild our former network of representatives in 26 countries. It is important that we were able to signal to the Hungarian audience this year that they are just as important to us,” Gerendai said.
He said two major problems had not yet been solved this year, but there had been positive developments.
The capital is expected to start the long-overdue renovation of the K-bridge leading to Hajógyári (Óbudai) Island in the autumn. “The work will take place over two years in two phases, and the reinforcement of the bridge structure is expected to be completed by next summer,” he said.
There could also be a major step forward in making Sziget dust-free. “We have agreed with the mayor that two drilled wells will be created on the island, and one of these can be used to create a continuously sprinkled, watered area in one of Budapest’s largest public parks, which will also have a positive impact on the conditions of the festival,” Gerendai added.
