Truemors
It is not often that we hear about festivals that actually generate money here in North America. Usually, festival organizers run into big dept, scrambling to at least break even. It is “normal” to make no profit in the first couple of years because every festival needs branding in order to be financially successful. And, branding takes time. Once the festival becomes a catch-name, it will attract its viewership and hopefully make profit.
Running since 1993, the Sziget Festival in Europe has come full circle. It started off as a low-profile student event but matured into one of the best European rock festivals. The festival always enjoyed great attendance, but this year it is also breaking financial records.
The company said that a total of 385,000 people had attended the week-long musical extravaganza located on an island in the Danube in Budapest, which was one of the largest music and cultural festivals in Europe. Sziget said that its investment of more than 100 million forints (about 421,000 euros) to increase capacities on the island had contributed significantly to the profitability of the festival, held between August 12 and 18.
The company added that 50,000 people had attended the Hungarian song day held on the day before the official kickoff of the de facto festival, which preliminary data suggests will push up total event profit by several million forints.
Budapest is known as a festival city in the same league as England’s Glastonbury and Denmark’s Roskilde.
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