The five-day extravaganza on an island in north Budapest broke visitor records this year with 390,000 attending, very near the maximum capacity of festival grounds, the paper said.
Profits estimated at 150 million forints (EUR 555,000) from the Sziget alone and another 150 million from the organising Sziget company's other activities could finance expansion to new sites, owner and main organiser Karoly Gerendai said. Cities easily accessible on motorway as well as public transport on the Adriatic coast are eyed for a sister event, to be launched next summer, he added. Split and Zadar are among towns targeted to host the festival.
Sziget statistics from this year's festival showed that cheap tickets with a 50 percent student discount were not all that popular, so Gerendai envisaged the new festival to target the more affluent with premium services, similarly to an other event they organise by Bake Balaton, called Balaton Sound.
The audience of Budapest's Sziget is increasingly made up of foreign nationals with 70 percent of all-week tickets sold to non-Hungarians. However, 85 percent of daily tickets are bought by Hungarians, despite ticket prices having risen faster than inflation for several years, the paper said.
Source: Hungarian News Agency (MTI) / Photo: Dániel Kováts
