EUROPEAN FESTIVALS – SZIGET
SZIGET BEYOND SUPERSTRUCT
Sziget Festival head of production Horváth Tibor outlines what the return of its founder, and no longer being under the Superstruct umbrella, means for the huge Hungarian event.
One of Europe’ s largest festivals, the 85,000-capacity Sziget Festival will run this year for first time since 2017 independent of Superstruct ownership. With its founder Károly Gerendai back at the helm, new investment and a long-term site lease secured, Sziget will return to its home on Budapest’ s Óbudai island from 11-15 August. The line up includes Chappell Roan, Charli XCX and Shawn Mendes.
What can you tell me about the reasons for the change of ownership?
I can’ t share too much detail, but it was an ongoing conversation last year and by the time we finished the festival, we knew an ownership change was coming. Our founder returned, who I had worked with between 2015 and 2017.
Horváth Tibor
The essence of the festival stayed the same throughout the Superstruct years because the vision was already well established. The ownership change hasn’ t radically altered how the festival operates – we’ re focused on continuity.
Why has the capacity been reduced?
Previously we were around 85,000 per day, but due to regulatory changes we’ re now at 65,000 for the main stage area. We felt that reducing that area’ s capacity improved comfort and overall experience rather than pushing to maximum numbers. The whole event site’ s overall capacity remains 85,000.
I’ m told many festivals owned by Superstruct operate relatively autonomously. Was that your experience?
Absolutely. The pre-Superstruct era was the foundation of what Sziget has been over the last few years. With Superstruct, there are certain systems and similarities across festivals, but everyone still operates independently
36 accessaa. co. uk