Sziget Fesztival with english eyes.......

Sziget festival: 

in search of Europe's fields of dreams

Why traipse through Glasto's swamps when you can watch your favourite bands play on an island in the Danube? Garry Mulholland travels to Hungary to find a festival gem.....

 

 

More than just a muddy field ... Sziget festivalgoers pitch their tents on the banks of the Danube.

It's a balmy midnight in Hungary and you are walking through a forest lit with fairy lights. To your right there's an impromptu 50s-style sock hop, DJed by a man in a tuxedo who has set up his turntables in the front of an original Mini Cooper that's been cut in half. To your left, delighted whoops are greeting a buff gay dance troupe doing an energetic routine to the strains of Enough Is Enough by Donna Summer and Barbra Streisand. In front of you, a drunk couple who can't be any older than 17 are trying to duet on Paradise City at the heavy metal karaoke. You're just about to make up your mind whether to stick with one of these or proceed to your original destination of the Roma tent, when your nose catches a whiff of chilli noodles, then chicken burrito, and then what appears to be a giant hog roast.

1. Sziget festival
2. Budapest, Hungary

This is the Sziget festival, Budapest, and it truly feels like Paradise City.
I hate festivals. Or, at least, I thought I did. The experiences they offer appeared to be, on the one hand, drinking overpriced lager in some godforsaken field, trying to avoid drug casualties and terrible indie bands. Or, on the other, going to one of those right-on, middle-class festivals, being ordered around by health and safety police in what looks like a giant Holland & Barrett, while bored children are dragged around by parents who want to relive their student days by seeing James play Sit Down, and, you know, sitting down. If God had meant gigs to be in fields he wouldn't have invented the roof.
So Sziget was a surprise. The event is held every August on Óbuda, a 266-acre woodland island in the middle of the Danube. It began in 1993 as a Budapest version of Glastonbury for 40,000 people, with an emphasis on local music, arts and civic organisations. Now it's a major event attracting 350,000 people from all over Europe, with headliners including David Bowie, Radiohead, the Cure and the Prodigy, and boasting a 2011 bill that includes Amy Winehouse, Dizzee Rascal, Kasabian and the National.
But despite its increasingly populist booking policy, a short, controversial period in the 90s when it was sponsored by Pepsi, and estimates that 70% of its audience now comes from outside Hungary, Sziget still manages to retain its quirkiness and multicultural ideals.
All of which raises a question: is Sziget evidence that European festivals are now a much better bet than the UK's glutted market of expensive corporate rock beanfeasts? Isn't a week dipping in and out of a vibrant and slightly insane festival while sightseeing in Budapest a more valuable experience than three days in a mudpatch in England watching bands that have all the charisma of a burger van in a car park? Or did I just happen to have a nice time?
As managing director of Ostfest Promotions, Elroy Thümmler is one of the prime movers behind a number of European festivals, including Sziget. The fact that he's based in Holland says much about the international aspirations of the new breed of eastern European events. He thinks recent history lends them a more idealistic feel. "Festivals such as Sziget and Exit, in Serbia, originated after the fall of the Berlin Wall and Milosevic. So there's a desire to make them festivals of freedom. It's different from the commercial attitude in western European festivals."
Best to ask one of the natives about all that. Rock photographer Veronika Moore was born and bred in Budapest but has lived and worked in England for 10 years. Even though she's a committed fan of UK festivals – Bestival gets her biggest thumbs-up – she can't stop going back to Sziget, having been to 10 of them, more often as punter than snapper. "Sziget is more than just a music festival. It's a cultural event. You can spend a whole week at Sziget without going near the main stage. You'll find every nationality there, from Irish and Ukrainian to Turkish and French, and all of these people bring their own bands, theatre groups, food and culture. One part of the site is given up to civil organisations. Religions, charities, psychiatric help, self-help, all non-profit. They have a Jewish tent with real Rabbis doing a Jewish disco. One year there were hardcore punk and metal bands playing thrash versions of Hare Krishna chants. You wouldn't see this stuff anywhere else. Sziget has the weirdness factor."
Martin Elbourne worked as part of the Glastonbury team for 25 years, as well as being a consultant for Guilfest and Jersey Live, and co-promoter of Brighton's excellent multi-indoor venue festival The Great Escape (key element: roofs). He is a man you'd expect to protect the honour of the Great British Rock Festival. But even he admits the festival sun is rising in the east. "It's become part of the mix for the young music fan. Go to a different country. The beer's cheaper. And eastern Europe seems to be getting together more and more good festivals. They have to get good locations because they rely on western tourists coming in. Exit and Sziget have fantastic reputations. If I wasn't committed to stuff in the UK for my work I'd happily toodle round eastern Europe for a month going to festivals."
But for the most battle-hardened fest-vets, it's never about the country you happen to be partying in. Thomas H Green was encouraged to write about music by his love of raving in fields. He's been writing about festivals around the world since the mid-90s. "Wherever you go in the world," he says, "festivals fall into two categories. There are festivals put on by music lovers that eventually become sustainable businesses. And there are people who want to make a lot of money and put on a big gig in a field and hire some burger vans. The latter doesn't have any sense of joy. So, wherever you are, if you're unlucky enough to go to one of those, it will lack that spirit of anarchy and freedom that festivals are all about."
Festivals are also about money. The money that buys you the biggest headline bands. The money to be made from those burger vans. And, most importantly, the money a fan can afford to spend in search of summer fun. Moore says she spends less money going to Sziget than she does going to a festival in the UK. "Price is the massive difference," she says. "Not even the ticket price, but the drinks and the food. I find it really strange that, at most UK festivals, you have to pay extra for things like getting your phone charged or a programme. You pay £150 for a ticket and then they try to charge you another £4 for a programme? It's just not right. I come out feeling ripped off."
A weekend camping ticket for this year's V festival at Hylands Park in Essex costs £175. Parking is extra. A programme is also extra. You can't bring in food or drink, so you have to buy what is on-site. A pint of beer will cost you around £4. The nearest town is Chelmsford, which is two miles away, so unless you can be bothered to head there for your meals, you're at the mercy of whatever prices are charged.
But although you can bring food and drink to Sziget, and a pint of beer is only £1.60, a ticket with camping for the week costs €170, and, of course, there's the cost of flights. And then there's all that guilt about your carbon footprint.
So a festival like Sziget is much cheaper once you're in, but still a wallet-emptier. Perhaps the biggest value is in the flexibility – day tickets and non-camping tickets are available – of mixing the festival experience with a holiday in Budapest. One of the distinctive elements of Sziget is cruising to and from the island along the Danube, which is gorgeous at night – buying a week's ticket doesn't mean you are tied to the site. And the metropolitan setting lends yet another dimension to Sziget's fascinating mix of festivalgoers. Justin Sullivan has been performing at rock festivals big and small for 30 years as the leader of New Model Army. Yet he readily admits that his three Sziget experiences stand out among the hundreds. "It's right on the edge of a cosmopolitan, cool city. So you get people in their camping clothes and people coming from Budapest, all dressed to the nines. Its like Glastonbury meets the city. The first time we played we came off quite late, but there were about 15 stages that went on all night. And you were always surprised by what you were going to see."
One mention of Glastonbury defeats the argument, of course. Everything the best festivals in Europe do, Glastonbury did first. But Sziget is a 21st-century rarity: a festival that – by way of its eclectic bill, its beautiful location and a crowd that isn't cynical about the pleasures of sharing music and art with others – reminds you of the original ideals of the pre-corporate festival. So much so that it's almost convinced me to throw away three decades of snobbishness and go to Glastonbury – before someone finally decides it makes too many people happy and makes it go away.