Sziget 2015 – Organizers: The interest to the festival is unbreakable

According to szon.hu, this year’s press conference was held in Budapest, last week at A38 ship, by Gerendai Károly; the main organizer. Last year, there were more than 400 thousands visitors and this year interest is still high. Gerendai Károly, main organizer, introduced the innovations and said that the same genres will be put in the same zones. Nowadays, star performers are not enough to attract visitors. We improve the lights, the infrastructure, the hygiene, the public lights, which will be installed in more places and the main stage will be bring forward in order to be able to host more people – said Gerendai Károly.

From this year’s performers, we can highlight Robbie Williams who will be on stage on the minus first day on 10th August; this concert will be precede by two Hungarian productions: the Nagy-Szín-Pad talent show’s (yet unknown) winner, moreover, the Irie Maffia band who performed the Sziget’s hymn this year. At the zeroth day, the selection will vary from the Gentleman & the Evolution, the Florence and the Machine and to Quimby. The next days’ main stage will host performers such as, Ellie Goulding, Avicii, Kasabian, Limp Bizkit, Foals, Marina and the Diamonds, Gogol Bordello, Maccabees and the performer of the End Show: Martin Garrix.

It has been said that the financial limit to the festival has been increased which means that this year 4, 4 billion forints will be laid into the festival; moreover, the ticket selling is better than the previous year. Just for the lights, they will spend 1 million euros (almost 300 000 million forints) and more than one thousand programs will be held at the Hajógyári Island between 10th and 17th August.

Gerendai Károly also mentioned that the Sziget festival plays an important role in the national cultural life and also in the intercultural festivals; the festival has been selected as Europe’s best big festival for the second time this year. The main organizer told that 90% of the passes are being sold abroad; the week-long festival attracts as many tourists as the Formula 1. He remarked: the last year’s decision, to held the festival a week later than the previous time had made changes in Japanese and other European festivals, too. They had also put the date of their festivals a week later.

Kardos József, the old-new program director has become part of the Sziget’s team again, after Szép Fruzsina had joined a team at a festival in Berlin. At the press conference, he highlighted that with the genre zones, the festival’s programs probably will be more popular.

‘The KúltúrZóna will be stronger: in the Fidelio stage there will be with opera, classical music and jazz. Moreover, this zone will host the theater and dance booths, the ‘vándor vurstli’, a lot of little street theaters, also the Hungarikum Falu and the dance halls which were taken the place of the afro-latin-raggae place. The zone will also be home for the museum quarter, too, where 17 institutes will be there – said Kardos József.

At Fidelio the following productions will be held: the CrossOper production will be seen and heard, the Opera Sitcom with the cooperation of the Armel Opera Festival and the College of Music; in addition to this, the Virtuózok Tehetségei, the violinist from Britain, Abraham Brody’s or Harcsa Veronika ‘s jazz production. At the theatre and dance booths the performers will be: the infamous Japanese dance-choreographer, Hiroaki Umeda, the Cuban Danz Abierta group, the French Compagnie MimH and the Israeli IdanSharabi & Dancers.

At the popular Circus place, the Cirque du Sziget, the following shows can be seen: the French Akoreaco group’s Klaxon show, the Czech Cirk La Putyka and the Hungarian Grotesque Gimnastics. The Nagy Utcaszínház’s this year’s sensation will be the Argentinian FuerzaBruta group’s Al Globe show which hadn’t been performed in East Europe before. The program director said that the Nagy Utcaszínház can host 1500 people but the show can be enjoyed from outside which will be four times a day at the big field before the A38 ship.

There will be a creative zone with logic booth, also, TEDx conference’s workshops with startup enterprises and young scientists, the Design Zóna with the Desing Terminal and WAMP sellers, the ArtZone’s artists and industrial designers, the Sport Zóna with numerous possibilities to sport, the Elektronikus Zóna with the main performers of the Colosseum and the Telekom Aréna. The fifteen-year-old Magic Mirror will be directed by Lakatos Márk.

The world’s music location is moving again to the spot where the circus used to be; however, its repertoire will be wider and more money will be invested into this section. The intercultural Gypsy music’s starts, the Mariza, the LaBrassBanda, the She’ Koyokh, the Noura Mint Seymali will have their concerts here. The A38’s stage will be host Dropkick Murphys, Enter Shikari, Gaslight Anthem, Infected Mushrooms, Interpol, José Gonzales and the Petőfi Rádió. On the Telekom’s VOLT Festival Stage will perform this year’s winner of the talent show of Nagy-Szín-Pad, the Péterfy Bori & Love Band, the Kistehén, the Carbonfools, the Kiscsillag, the Magashegyi Underground, the Wellhello, the Bin-Jip Erik Truffazzal the Fábián Juli & Zoohacker, the Vad Fruttik, the Hiperkarma and the 30Y,too.

Gerendai Péter said that landscaping had happened at most part of the Sziget and they had improved the festival’s water facilities, too.

based on article of szon.hu
translated by Andrea Toth

Photo: MTI

Source: szon.hu