I feel a little sad as will not attend the Sziget Festival for the second year. The nine years from 2006 to 2014 I always spent a week on the Obudai sziget (sziget actually means island).

It was great to see this Festival rise to the biggest (and once even voted the best) music festivals in Europe.
Great due to the attractions they added and the larger and larger crowd and a bit sad as the ticket prices rocketed, so nowadays locals can hardly afford them.

But the Sziget festival should definitely be on your to-do list!
Yet alone the location itself is a awesome place to have the party of your lifetime, I mean almost a whole island in a capital city crammed with  80.000 people willing to go full throttle!?! A recipe for big time fun, thrills, excitement and extasy!

We were always getting there two or three days earlier to camp on the island for free, have better beer smuggling odds and get our favourite place:

As the festival itself offers a mind blowing amount of attractions, like the luminarium, but you should not forget you are in Budapest, an exceptionally beautiful, vivid and interesting city!

Budapest – actually two cities separated by the Danube river, Buda and Pest – features a lot of great bars, like the Corvinteto or the Szimpla Kert:

Ok, ok, some of you will say that the new one is very touristic and overrun, but I have had a great time there, so I would at least recommend to check them out and leave or stay on purpose. I was lucky to have locals to drag me from one cool joint to the other, but also exploring the nightlife by oneself is fun and there are many hidden gems, as the clubs and bars open and close quickly where ever there is room and opportunity to pull them up! So be curious and put on your walking shoes!

Budapest also offers interesting museums, like the “House of Terror” or the Museum of fine Arts.

Another must-do-thing is to relax in one of the great spas in Budapest, the most beautiful ones are the Szécsényi bath and the Gellert bath.
In the Szécsényi bath sometimes party events are held, I once enjoyed one and all I can say here, is that it was a wild party!
But it can be a good way to restore yourself after a long night before you dive into the next party.

Ok, back to the festival. One of the great features of the Sziget festival is the Caravan Camping where you have electricity – so bring your fridge!
The camplife is really cool, you will meet a lot of friendly and chillaxed people there and maybe you make friends there – or even find your wife or husband!

Besides the concerts you can attend various cultural happenings, art shows and installations, courses for yoga, bellydance, chess, juggling and much more! You can even get married for the duration of the Sziget! Just dive in and enjoy!

OH! Almost forgot the music! Yes, there are concerts! A lot! You will be racing from one to another, in order not to miss anything!
Unfortunately to me Rock and Metal almost disappeared, I saw Iron Maiden, Faith no More, (Fantastic performance!), Motörhead (they were great!!) and my favourite band the Suicidal Tendencies !!!
Leningrad are always a sure shot and pretty smooth: two of their band members wiped the floor with a friend and me in table soccer in one of the bars at the festival… The first The Prodigy concert was great, but then they messed up!
Chemical brothers were brilliant, I definitely recommend to join DJ Shadow this year!
I enjoyed Maceo Parker, Buena Vista Social Club, Robert Plant a lot!
La Brass Banda gave a two awesome shows and even left the stage to play inside the crowd!
Be sure you check the small stages and tents, too! You can have great fun there and discover new tunes.

Another sadthing is that the Roma Tent is no longer present on the Sziget!
My friends and I always enjoyed hanging around there because of the good music and the people going there, too.

The Sziget really lost something good here…

Aside from the concerts the party around the mainstage is crazy:

One last hint from me:

But nevertheless, visit the Sziget festival and enjoy one week of music, art, party and good vibes!