Only a few days of away – from August 10th to 17th – and Hajógyári-sziget, the largest Danubian Island in Budapest, will host the 23rd edition of the Sziget Festival.
Born as low-profile student event in 1993 the Sziget Festival had been becoming one of the most important music festivals in Europe. The so-called “Island of Freedom” with its 50 stages, 1.000 events, including sports activities, workshops, art performances, concerts, street parades, nature and food, is ready for hosting millions of people from around the world.
These later are also the features that have crowned the Sziget as best festivals in Europe in 2014 at the European Festival Awards.
The “Freedom” is one of the conceptual underpinnings that has been characterizing the Festival since the beginning. Following this pursuit, the founders Péter Sziámi Müller and Károly Gerendai shaped this event achieving from year to year an exponential popularity.
Undoubtedly, the Sziget is a unique event of its kind, open to all art and music, a meeting point of cultures and diverse trends such as pop, rock, metal, hip hop, blues, reggae, African, world music, folk, electronic, jazz, classical and every other sound experimentation.
Among the famous artists announced for this year stand out Rihanna, Muse, Sigur Rós, David Guetta, Manu Chao La Ventura, The Chemical Brothers, Noe Gallagher’s High Flying Birds, Die Antwoord and many others.
However, to counterbalance the paradisiacal ambience of the event, his overflowing colors and remarkable sounds, the shadows of the environmental impact due to it.
Despite the natural frame of the Island the international range of the event and its huge popularity cause significant effects on the environment. Water consumption, excessive amount of rubbish, soil and river pollution, compression of the floor due to the number of visitors, stages and caterings facilities, pollution due to the use of mobile toilets, waste of food are just some of the wrong notes.
How to encourage sustainable behavior of the people? How to make Sziget festival “greener”?
Pursuing these question marks The Naturefriends Hungary (TFSz) and IYNF take part to the event with the aim to give rise a creative workshops and compelling activities.
The green color stands for values of love and care for nature, direct environmental experience, sustainability and environmental education.
An Instagram contest will call attention on the “green” surrounding; fantastic rewards will be assigned for the “greenest” shoots. Originality and creativeness put at the service of “Mother Nature”.
Festivals with camping facilities find that up to 80% of their total waste will come from the campsite, according to a Bucks New University survey of festival goers’ behavior. The statistical result say that one in six tents were left behind at festivals
In the title “Pimp your tent” the “Sziget’s inhabitants” will be solicited to make attractive their own tent through spray paint and stencil provided. To partake at this activity should help to make aware about the waste phenomenon avoiding the abandonment of the personal tent.
Closely related a body paintings sessions, interviews, workshops and a proactive stand available all day for supporting the “naturefriends” concerns. Definitely IYNF and TFSz are ready to the challenge, set to face the unknown through inventiveness. After all, “Freedom” means the condition in which an individual can decide to think and act, using the will to conceive and put in place an action without constraints.
On the stage of the “Island of Freedom”, under the soundtrack of international music, INYF and TFSz will encourage creativity and awareness like a “green highway” to enjoyment.