Record-Breaking Attendance at Sziget 2016 (Press release) sziget Sziget 2016 sziget festival Sziget News August 18, 201613 The 24th edition of the Sziget Festival has broken all previous records: a total of 496,000 people visited the Island of Freedom during its seven days. Several of them, including the ones headlined by Rihanna, Muse, and SIA, were sold out, the event’s lead organizer, Gerendai Károly, told the press. Record breaking festival This year’s Sziget Festival was attended by visitors from over 100 countries around the world. The number of visitors exceeded that of last year by about 20,000, which is a record in itself. Records were broken in other fields, too – the festival generated about 2,500 cubic meters (over 88,000 cubic feet) of garbage, out of which more than a third was recycled. Besides, over 120,000 sets of biodegradable plates and cutlery were used. The security measures enforced by the organizers have done their part in keeping the Szitizens safe. The number of petty crimes has fallen by half this year, the organizers say. There were no reports of major incidents or accidents. Massive attendance not drawn by headliners “The crowd is evening out on normal days,” Gerendai said. “While in the past, the number of visitors skyrocketed only in the weekends, or the days headlined by a major act, […] today the number of visitors is becoming more even”. “Apparently, the visitors coming and feeling great at Sziget doesn’t depend on extremely expensive stars anymore,” he went on. “Moreover, Rihanna was a disappointment even, while Muse, SIA, and Manu Chao served the audience with excellent performances.” Plans for the future Given the number of “sold-out” days, it seems that the festival has reached its attendee limit. For the future, the organizers don’t plan to expand it further – they can’t, given the inherent limitations of the location – but to “fine tune” the Sziget experience, to make the visitors feel more comfortable and cozy while there. Next year’s will be the 25th edition of Sziget Festival. Share on Facebook Share Share on TwitterTweet Share on Pinterest Share Share on LinkedIn Share Share on Digg Share
“Apparently, the visitors coming and feeling great at Sziget doesn’t depend on extremely expensive stars anymore,” he went on. “Moreover, Rihanna was a disappointment even, while Muse, SIA, and Manu Chao served the audience with excellent performances.” Given the number of “sold-out” days, it seems that the festival has reached its attendee limit. For the future, the organizers don’t plan to expand it further – they can’t, given the inherent limitations of the location – but to “fine tune” the Sziget experience, to make the visitors feel more comfortable and cozy while there. –> those are the words I really wanted to listen!
I really hope they go ‘back’ to the old days of Sziget; book acts of great live performances and diversity. Don’t get me wrong, I had a great time with a lot of beautiful people, but a lot of headlining (and expensive) acts were a real let down. The last 2 days a lot of things were sold out.. Sadly also the Palinka, but we managed to get some bottles back to our home!
“Apparently, the visitors coming and feeling great at Sziget doesn’t depend on extremely expensive stars anymore,” => well, maybe we get more DJs because they’re “cheap”. 🙂
Rihanna was absolutely dreadful. Waste of money on a lineup. Sia sounded great, but the show was not especially engaging. I was disappointed she didn’t at least have a live band. The rest of the main stagers I saw melted my face off, and were brilliant. The rest of the stages were all very good too. Lots of good stuff from around the world that I’m very happy to have seen. Seemed a bit strange though that most music didn’t start until the afternoon/evening. We would have loved to have seen something on the Classical stage earlier in the day, but they got conflicted out with other stages. Same with the theater/dance and circus areas. We would have loved to have some kind of performances earlier in the day. Not really a complaint because we were never ever bored. It was a gorgeous festival, save that rain on the move out. Can’t fight weather though, and most of it was glorious. My crew of four are all still fighting the festival flu from hell (aka ‘The Szikness’).
I loved the festival like every year. I really liked editors, kaiser chiefs, noel gallagher, sum41, muse and die antwoord. Totally disappointed on rihanna. I think the main thing to solve is the a38 acoustic which is embarassing. How can the telekom arena acoustic be 10x times better then a38 one Great festival enjoyed all the seven days
It was an excellent Sziget this year ! I really enjoyed most acts. As everyone I am really disapointed with Rihanna, providing us a “trailer” show at least 20 minutes late… Not to talk about SIA, displaying music video on the big screens instead of the stage in order to avoid public to see the fact that this was a playback performance. Not a single word to the public and a single sentence to say good bye at the end of the show… Anyway A38 concerts were awesome this year, really enjoyed it, as well as the Cirque du Sziget shows, too bad they did not plan on so many people wanting to check this out, I hadn’t the opportunity to see SOAP :/
@Denis on the big screens during Sia’s gig there were no music videos but only what was happening on the Main Stage. The dancers were there.
@Bender nope, I was really close to the stage, indeed this was really close to what was shown in the big screens but it was not the exact same thing, there was some differences (small delay sometimes, no dust on stage when supposed to have some according to the screen, not the same stuff (lights and stuff) on the borders of the “dancing/singing space”, and so on) This is really clever of her, I enjoyed the show because of the artistic performance on stage (also thanks to playback the sound was perfect) but she was kinda disrepectful to the public by not telling the truth (she was maybe sick or whatever, just explain it we’re grown up)
No doubt Sia’s videos were all pre-recorded, designed to be somewhat in sync with the touring dancers. I doubt highly that you could get Kristen Wiig, Paul Dano, and the rest of the A-list celebrities to tour with her for the whole summer. They had the actual actors on stage at Coachella, as it was close to home for LA people. But at Sziget, and the rest of her tour, they had touring dancers try to sync with the videos. The show would have been great in a theater or small venue setting, but it all got lost in the muck and mire of a festival. Sounded great. I think she sang, but obvs the music was all prerecorded. Disappointed for the most part. Still better than Rihanna.
