Once again this year, hundreds of thousands of visitors filled Freedom Island to experience the unique atmosphere of Sziget Festival.
The island, for the 29th edition of the event, was more colorful than ever, thanks to countless art installations and chill areas. This year’s festival also celebrated an exceptional occasion: the 10 millionth Sziget visitor, who arrived on Freedom Island on Friday.
The first Sziget Festival was held in 1993, with a total of 43,000 participants. Over the years, the festival has developed significantly, and last year saw more than 10 times as many visitors as the first year. Adding up the total number of visitors over the past 30 years, there were a total of 10 million participants at Sziget, which is equivalent to the entire population of Hungary.
“This edition was a watershed in the history of the festival. We managed to redefine the Sziget experience by taking a big step forward and improving the guest experience, while the festival’s diverse program was also shaped to meet the needs of local and international audiences”-said Festival Director Tamás Kádár, who also revealed that he expected a total of just over 420,000 visitors this year.
The numbers of Sziget 2023
Freedom Island is developed over 76 hectares, built in just three weeks and can accommodate about 90,000 people per day, including festival staff and participants. This makes Sziget the tenth largest “city” in Hungary for these six days. There are more than 100 food spots on the island with a wide selection of international as well as Hungarian cuisines.
Within the festival there is no shortage of services, such as a City Center with an information point and customer service, luggage and valuables storage, a lost and found, several ATMs, a currency exchange, parking for bicycles, cars, and many other services. Security is provided by the security team, law enforcement and fire brigade; there is the 24-hour health center service, with a field hospital and more than 200 people including doctors, paramedics and nurses.
The majestic Mainstage was built constructed in “only” 10 days, with more than 1,000 m2 of floor space and 600 m2 of LED wall in the background. The Samsung Party Arena, with more ledwalls and lasers than last year, has a space of 4,000 m2, while the Freedom tent presented by Mastercard was able to accommodate more than 10,000 people by offering an upgraded sound system in our opinion.
The spectacular TicketSwap Colosseum, was built with 3,000 pallets and featured a “ring” of him that ensured a more 360-degree effect of the stage.
The festival’s smallest venue, on the other hand, measured only 4 m2.
DAY 1
Quiet day in terms of names, Florence + The Machine at MainStage.
At the Samsung Arena hardstyle stage hosted by QDance supercrowded, with artists brought in already in past editions such as Ran-D and Sub Zero Project.
Bonobo and Parra For Cuva at the Freedome the most interesting sets.
At the press area networking welcome party with accompanying beer and palinka, great way to make contacts.
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DAY 2
Day full of names, from Yungblud to Imagine Dragons at MainStage, via Ben Bohmer and Jamie XX at the Freedome
Right at the Freedome the two best sets of the day and among the best of the entire festival.
Ben Böhmer with 2/3 new IDs creates his usual magic (perfect mood and show).
Jamie XX (as he did in Turin at club2club) manages to entertain the audience from beginning to end with his enthusiasm, less techno than usual.
At the Samsung Arena, on the other hand, excellent sets by Joyhauser (though heard little to contemporary with Jamie XX) and Adam Beyer who, despite the time, manages to grab the audience.
Reinier Zonneveld unfortunately skipped due to the prohibitive time (5 a.m.).
DAY 3
Saturday kicks off with David Guetta, who brings his new show Monolith (a huge parallelepiped-shaped ledwall with new specific visuals)
Guetta’s usual set with predilection for tracks and remixes of his future rave or techno hits for most of the time with final 25 minutes featuring a succession of his (but not only) classic hits: Titanium, Calling, In My Mind, Wake Me Up, When Love Takes Over x Years and final closing with Remember x Without You.
After Guetta we moved on to the Freedome where we heard Two Feet and Moderat.
For Two Feet overcrowded stage with EVERYONE hyped into the engaging show, an excellent discovery of whom I knew only the productions and little about live instead.
Moderat nothing to say as usual perfect as they were in Milan in November, “A New Error” played as second track and not at the end creates even more hype for the succession of the set, visuals and choice of tracks always impeccable. Again stage full.
At the Samsung Arena, on the other hand, it’s Rampage and NextLevel day with Troyboi, the b3b between Kompany, Barely Alive and Herobust; Macky Gee and Murdock as headliners.
Troyboi presents an experimental and very Trap-centric set. B3B on the other hand very fun, many mashups and remixes of famous songs with dubstep edits, few “pogo” compared to other festivals (even last year was like that) but nice mood among the people, maybe set with tracks a bit too disjointed from each other. Murdock and macky gee classic drum & bass sets as we are used to hearing, stage fuller than b3b. Too bad about the volume a bit lower than other days….
At the Colosseum instead excellent set by Jeff Mills.
DAY 4
Straight away M83 at Freedome, set almost identical to the one at Magnolia, stage full to be at the same time as MainStage headliner Mumford & Sons, closing with “Midnight City” and always exciting outro.
We continue with Gladde paling b2b vieze Asbak at Dropyard, stage full with people also outside, great mood from beginning to end, first part of the set ( 2 hours set) more focused on hard techno second much more varied instead
One of the most entertaining sets of the whole festival.
At Samsung Arena instead night hosted by Diplo and Higher Ground.
Great set by Diplo very varied, with a tech house set that however kept playing with edits/remixes of the most popular hits, and a raving crowd from start to finish, followed by b2b with Carlita and Carlita’s solo set at the close of the fourth day. B2b more focused on pure tech house making it perhaps a bit more monotonous than the solo set.
DAY 5:
Day opened with Lazza‘s live performance on the Mainstage, the first Italian artist on the main stage after 13 years, which clearly drew the attention of the many Italians present at the festival, probably 600 people.
Of Tale Of Us only Mrak was present, still drewing an oceanic crowd that saturated the Samsung Party Arena.
DAY 6:
Unhappy hours for 999999, who due to the demands of tour embeddings occupy the 2 p.m. slot, on the only stage lit at that hour of the day.
Yet the Italian duo is also well known abroad, and despite the time, they attracted a considerable amount of people, to the point of filling the coliseum anyway. As they are wont to do, energy was not lacking in the 90-minute hard techno set with acid sounds and stretches of psy.
I Hate Models, on the other hand, did a hard techno set but not very violent and quite monotonous, totally devoid of acid sounds. Stage predictably full but slightly emptied towards the end.
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Our reporters TOP 3:
Riccardo (@ferry27r)
1) Ben Böhmer
2) Moderat
3) Gladde Paling b2b Vieze Asbak
Vittorio (@vintonic)
1) 9999999999
2) Gladde Paling b2b Vieze Asbak
3) Moderat
Next year will be 30° Sziget anniversary, here you can find the dates: from 7 to 12 August 2024.
U21 6-Day Pass: 179 €
6-Day Pass: 239 €
6-Day VIP Pass: 459 €
www.szigetfestival.com
