Sziget festival 2009

The Sziget Festival (pronounced ['sigɛt], similar to see’-get) is one of the largest music and cultural festivals in Europe. The festival is held annually in August in Budapest, Hungary and takes place on Óbudai-sziget (“Old-Buda Island”), a leafy island of 108 hectares (266 acres) on the Danube, thus Sziget stands for Island. Currently it boasts more than 1000 performances each year. The week-long festival has grown from a relatively low-profile 1993 student event to become one of the definitive European rock festivals by the late 1990s, with about half of all visitors coming from outside Hungary, including the UK and France (11 000 French visitors in 2007). It also boasts a dedicated “party train” service (with resident DJ’s) that transports festivalgoers from Western Europe. The second event (1994), labeled Eurowoodstock, was headlined by performers from the original festival 25 years after. In 1997, Sziget attendancy rates surpassed the 250 000 mark, and in 2001, the 350 000 mark.