The festival, regarded as one of the largest of its kind in Europe, will start on August 11 to run on Hajogyari Island on the Danube until August 16. "Our main goal is to continue to provide programmes and services that have been successful so far and further improve their quality," said Gerendai. He said that improvements introduced last year, such as discount tickets for student groups and night-time tickets at half price, would also be available this year.
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| Karoly Gerendai |
The economic crisis has shown its effects on the festival for the first time this year, Karoly Gerendai said, noting a drop in the advance sale of passes. He added, however, that the sale of daily tickets had slightly gone up.
Among this year's improvements Gerendai mentioned the Sziget card introduced to replace payments in cash and eliminate long queues at stands.
Regarding new events he mentioned the EU Trio Focus programme about the Spain-Belgium-Hungary trio of presidencies between 2010 and 2011 and the art designers' market WAMP.
The festival will once again offer internationally renowned stars this year, bringing Britain's alternative rock band Muse, heavy metal group Iron Maiden and electronica group Faithless to Budapest, he said.
The Sziget Festival last year attracted a record number of 390,000 visitors.
Source: Hungarian News Agency (MTI) / Photo: sziget.biz
