Business Enquirer Issue 108 | Sziget Festival | Nov'22

Sziget Festival

The Island of Freedom

The summer of 2022 was all about the joy of reunion and celebrating togetherness.

Known for its unbeatable joyful atmosphere, unique location and hosting the world’s top artists and creators, Sziget Festival has been on the up and up for the last 30 years.

With unwavering values, Sziget is leading the way with its sustainable measures securing the success of future festivals. Sziget Festival CEO, Tamás Kádár, shares with Business Enquirer why the festival is one of Europe’s biggest parties.

A Week of a Lifetime

Looking at the lineup, you can quickly see why Sziget is a popular choice for festival goers. In 2022 the stage was shared by international heavyweights such as Dua Lipa, Calvin Harris and Justin Bieber. Recent years have seen 450,000 people through the turnstiles.

“Sziget is one of the longest festivals, with six days of superstars,” shared Tamás, “it’s such a diverse line-up, featuring music from across the genres. Even our smaller stages are bigger than some of the major UK main stages”.

With previous years featuring headliners like Foo Fighters, Post Malone, Ed Sheeran, Rihanna and The Prodigy, who has been the most memorable act for Tamás?

“It has to be Prince, who we hosted in 2011,”

PROJECT DIRECTED BY WRITTEN BY Chiara Salter

Laura Watling

Lifestyle

he said. “It was awe-inspiring to watch him perform a two-and-a-half-hour set, and felt like a huge milestone for the festival”.

The festival, which only has downtime between the hours of 5am and 10am, isn’t exclusively a music festival. Sziget is a 360-degree art festival, circus and theatre, and even features a museum quarter. It has earned the moniker of the “European Coachella”.

“What’s unique about Sziget is its location,” explained Tamás. Based on an island (the literal meaning of sziget in Hungarian) in the middle of Budapest, visitors to the festival also have the opportunity to explore the rest of what Hungary’s capital has to offer.

“We consider Sziget to be a festival holiday,” he said.

Imagine All The People

As part of Sziget Festival’s partnership

Sziget Festival

with the Superar program, 2022 also saw the performance of John Lennon’s Imagine by 200 children.

“Superar integrates children from underprivileged backgrounds through music. It’s an important initiative to us as we believe music and the arts is a powerful tool. It was very emotional to watch the performance this year as we made a comeback from Covid,” shared Tamás. Of course, the live performance sector saw a huge impact during the Covid pandemic, with Tamás saying that 2022 was considered “the last festival during Covid” rather than the first post-pandemic. That will be next year, when the festival will celebrate 30 years since its launch.

Having overcome the issues caused by Covid, the festival has been met with new challenges.

“Our subcontractors are struggling to find workforce after a lot of people exited the industry during the pandemic,” he explained, “like the rest of the world we’re also facing the increasing costs of energy, so we’re

implementing some sustainable initiatives to combat that”.

The Next Step

Sziget is working with its sponsors to encourage them to think innovatively when it comes to sustainability.

“Wizzair offers our festival goers a plane ticket which includes the option to bring a tent for free. This encourages our guests to take their tents home - waste caused by tents is usually a big problem for the industry. This year we also collected any discarded tents and delivered them to those in need in Ukraine,” explained Tamás.

The festival uses green power from Budapest’s grid, and plans to implement renewable technology, with the aim of becoming a leading carbon neutral festival.

Join the Love Revolution

As well as being the umbrella brand for its many initiatives, Love Revolution encompasses

Lifestyle

Wizz Air

We at Wizz Air, Europe’s fastest growing and greenest airline were thrilled to partner with Sziget, one of Europe’s largest and most environmentally conscious festivals. The aim of the partnership was to further promote sustainable festival participation, while festivalgoers produce as little waste as possible during their stay.

Thanks to Wizz Air’s campaign between, participants joining from foreign countries could transport their tents free of charge on some of the airline’s flights to and from Budapest. With this solution, they were not forced to buy single-use camping equipment that ends up as waste on Sziget.

Sustainability is in the focus at Wizz Air, which is reflected not only in the particularly young fleet with an average age of just under five years.

Wizz Air also thinks about those young people, who are not only interested in sustainability as tourists, but they are also welcomed as employees of the dynamically developing airline. More information about how to apply at careers.wizzair.com.

Wizz Air offers its employees various benefits. For example, crew members are provided with unlimited number of discounted and a great number of free and confirmed tickets, free uniforms and are offered free training and even a training allowance, among other benefits. Last year, the airline also launched the Cabin Crew to Captain program, which inspires Wizz Air cabin crew and helps them realize their career dreams of becoming a pilot through comprehensive financial support, travel and accommodation opportunities, and a tailored work and study plan.

Festivals were organised again and after a two-year hiatus Samsung welcomed visitors at three different creative venues at Sziget Festival. The biggest festival of Hungary, which was attended by 450 000 people this year, presented 14 music stages filled with worldclass performers, 40+ program venues and more than 500 artists through 6 days. Moreover, the tech giant revealed its new devices on the opening day of the Sziget Festival.

Unfolding new possibilities with ground-breaking devices

Samsung Electronics is known for taking consistent and impactful actions led by the vision of sustainabil ity and innovation. The South Korean company con sistently pushes the boundaries and provides original solutions. The tech-giant acted the same way when announced the next generation of ground-breaking foldable smartphones: Galaxy Z Flip4 and Galaxy Z Fold4 on 10th of August 2022. The fourth generation of Galaxy Z series continues to break from convention to deliver interactions that enhance everyday life. Focusing and shaping everyday health and wellness habits, the foldable smartphones were accompanied by Galaxy Watch5. The new smartwatch brings person alized design options, comprehensive fitness func tions and insightful sleep tracking. The disclosure of the new versatile devices, called Unpacked, happened to take place on the first day of the Sziget Festival, one of the most anticipated music events of Hungary. Located on an iconic island of Bu dapest, the festival is also called the Island of Free dom. It is truly a place to be cheerful and light-heart ed with the new smartphones and smartwatches which complement the feeling of freedom in many ways.

The Galaxy Z Flip4 builds on the success of Samsung’s iconic form factor, adding key features which come handy at a festival, including an upgraded camera experience, powerful battery and expanded cus tomization. The Galaxy Z Flip4 not only maintains its ultra-compact design, but also crafted to go truly hands-free: make calls, reply to texts, or take photos all from the Cover Screen which is extremely helpful during the best concert of your life. The Galaxy Z Fold4 opens new possibilities to facilitate a day in the life at a festival, users can maximize their multitasking skills. Samsung puts emphasis on delivering a truly optimized experience to ensure that every consumer has a device to fit their needs.

Feeling the beat in Samsung Colosseum

Samsung Colosseum is considered as the epicentre of underground electronic music at Sziget Festival. Stepping into one of Europe’s most unique electronic venues, one can enjoy the beats every day from noon until 5AM. The impressive dimensions of the venue with a capacity of almost 3000 people were comple

mented by exciting design elements: the setting is modelled after the Roman Colosseum but instead of massive stones this amphitheatre is made of wood and the DJ booth in the central dance floor resembled a giant gladiator. The experience was enhanced by outstanding sound and lighting technology. Colos seum grants exclusive opportunity for brand design elements and being one of the most popular stages at the Island of Freedom, approximately 180.000 festi val-goers joined the party altogether.

Connecting in cool tents Samsung’s presence at Sziget Festival is not only about design, logo and venue named after the com pany. It is also a chance to showcase the product synergy and the benefits of connected living to the visitors. Samsung grabbed the opportunity to commu nicate this message to Millennials and GenZ effec tively from a closer point of view in GamingDome and ConnecTent.

A huge tent, named GamingDome was set up at the centre of the festival prepared especially for visitors who love gaming. In the cool hemisphere visitors –also called Szitizens at this festival – could test the NEO QLED gaming experience, through the Motion Xcelerator Turbo Pro 144Hz refresh rate. GamingDome ensured multiple game on a selection of Samsung devices, quizzes, raffles, and festival photos. Gaming Dome served an opportunity to improve brand prefer ence among gamers through their passion point, the popularity was outstanding, the tent counted 1000 visitors daily.

Perhaps the most special of all was the ConnecTent, that felt like a luxury apartment in the middle of the festival. Here, after pre-registration, attendees could enjoy an hour and a half of the comfort of the finest Samsung products. During the 1.5 hours session a group of 5-6 people were given the experience of the full Samsung ecosystem that gave a premium touch to the festival spirit. All time slots were booked in credibly fast, within 3 hours on the opening day.

The venue was perceived by over 1000+ visitors per day and the ConnecTent feeling was experienced by 144 visitors, since all 24 slots were fully booked through a unique Microsite. Visitors could leave some messages on the Guestbook TAB, such as: “We loved the vibes, very chill and cozy, also pretty! The new Flip phones are really awesome!” or “A wonderful lounge with many impressive products! Glad to have Samsung phone!”

These special places helped Samsung to communicate about the festival presence in which influencers were also involved. They shared a lot of social media content showing the special Samsung experience of the festival and cre ating a buzz and boast visibility of the ConnecTent on Instagram, Facebook or TikTok.

Jana

Jana- Feel the power of the minerals with natural mineral water of the highest quality

Natural mineral water Jana has a stable mineral composition: it contains silicon and has an ideal ratio of calcium and magnesium 2:1 which is optimal for their utilization in the body.

Minerals are elements that the body needs in small amounts and that we must ingest because the body cannot create them, so we consider them essential nutrients. Minerals take part in the structure of the body and are components of body fluids and tissues and are necessary for overall normal functioning.

The human body consists of 60% water.

By consuming a sufficient amount of water, we ensure that our body functions properly on a daily basis. Without proper hydration, our body reaches the limits of endurance, headaches and irritability occur. Drink water even when you are not thirsty, because when you feel thirsty, you are already slightly dehydrated. Thanks to the unique depth of its source and the mineral composition of the layers of earth through which it passes, Jana has a special purity and impeccable mineral composition.

Jana springs at a depth of 800 meters, and with the most modern filling technology, it is filled directly into the bottle from a depth of 800 meters, without any external influences. Jana’s first encounter with the outside world, after 7000 years, takes place the moment we open it and taste it. Jana’s top quality has been recognized and awarded with the world’s highest award for product quality - the Grand Gold Award at the Monde Selection global competition.

Jana is available in a more environmentally friendly, 100% recycled 0.5l bottle.

the brand’s core values - respect, acceptance, and tolerance. Amongst its initiatives, Tamás is proud of the work it does to support the LGBTQIA+ community in Hungary.

“Since its beginning, our community has been based on the idea of creating a “dream nation”, celebrating and sharing the best from cultures and people across the world. Sziget gives people the opportunity to share experiences with others they may not have had the opportunity to,” explained Tamás, “Magic Mirror is our LGBTQIA+ venue, and as well as offering programs to educate on the LGBTQIA+ communities, it also hosts the best parties!”

Sziget is praised for being one of the most peaceful festivals, with 2022 seeing just five disturbances across the six days.

“I believe this is thanks to the atmosphere and culture we and our community have created,” said Tamás.

Clearly a good fit to be the CEO of the

Sziget Festival

festival, Tamás’ leadership style reflects the Love Revolution ethos. Tamás considers himself a Sziget “veteran” having visited the event since 1995. He joined the team in 2011.

“I previously worked in media and advertising and went on to found two radio stations. Joining Sziget was one of the best decisions I’ve made,” he shared.

Tamás’ leadership values centre on the respect of others and teamwork.

“Our team is made up of 35 people who are all really knowledgeable in their field. They challenge me, which I think is important to the creative focus,” he said.

The Big 3-0

Despite 2023 marking the festival’s 30th year, due to the covid restrictions it won’t be the 30th festival.

“We will of course mark our 30th birthday, but the real celebration will be for our 30th festival, which will be in 2025. This will be our biggest party yet!” Tamás explained.

Sziget Festival

www.szigetfestival.com

info@busenq.com www.busenq.com