Sziget Festival 2016 - fever, stress and our favorite band #2

On the train I had suddenly gotten fever and my whole body started to hurt as I became really sick. Charlotte gave me a pill and I tried to get back to sleep so I could rest a little before reaching Budapest. After a three hours delay we finally reached Budapest at 9:30pm, after 19 hours of sitting in a train. I felt a little bit better and at least my fever was gone by the time we arrived.

The first thing I did was checking my Emails to see if the hostel had already answered my email, and they did. They offered us a discount so we were able to afford the room with the rest of the money we had and still left us money to buy water. So we made our way to the hostel, which was 8km away from the central station but only about 10 minutes walking from the festival. It took us about 2 1/2 hours to walk there, especially because we often stopped to take pictures of Budapest, which is by far one of the most beautiful cities I have ever seen. 

When we reached the hotel it was after midnight and all Charlotte and I could think of was sleeping in a decent bed and finally getting some rest after being on trains all the time. So we checked in and while checking in got offered a typical Hungarian shot, which tasted like really, really strong vodka. We drank it, got our key and went onto the 4th floor where our room was located. Our room had three beds of which two seemed to be taken, so Charlotte went back downstairs to ask if we were in the right room, since we were two people and there was only one bed left. Apparently it was our room and they just told her to lay in one of those beds since the two guys staying in our room were still on the festival. When Charlotte came back upstairs and told me everything we decided to just share a bed so we both slept on one matress we took out of the bed since we were afraid to fall out of it.

It took the guys about an hour to come back from the Festival and since Charlotte and I still weren't asleep, because we were sharing one matress, we heard them coming in. They were Germans and quite confused about us laying there, but I didn't care and stopped listening because I really needed some sleep. It didn't take me long to fall asleep then and I woke up around 9:30am from the sounds of the two guys packing their stuff and leaving. 

After they had left I layed down in one of the beds that were free now and had the best sleep ever since we left, but only until someone knocked on our door at 12pm. Both still sleep-drunk put the matress back into the bed and opened the door where the guy who gave us the shot the night before was sitting on a table telling us that we had to leave the room at 10am. Because no one told us when we would have to leave we were quite confused, packed our stuff and went downstairs to the reception where we checked out. Before we left we took a shower since we felt kinda disgusting after such a long travel and such hot temperatures in Bucharest and Budapest. 

Finally showered and all ready we made our way to Sziget, one of the biggest Festivals in the world. We got our wristbands with VIP access and stayed a little longer in the guest list and artist check-in as we still had time until the first act we wanted to see would play. 


The Festival 

After resting in the check-in tent for about an hour, we decided to walk into the festival and explore it a little before Years & Years would be playing on the Mainstage. We had a different entrance than all the other guests so it only took us about 5 minutes to get in. I looked on the plan I had taken in at the entrance and found out that there was a VIP area really close to the Mainstage, so Charlotte and I made our way there, looking at the whole festival. 

Sziget is the biggest Festival I have ever been to. It consisted of more stages than I was able to count and different small villages that were focused on different themes, like Afro-Latin-Raggae. I was overwhelmed by how big this festival was. 

After about 15 minutes of walking and being confused a few times, we finally made it to the VIP area from where we had a perfect view on the Mainstage, so we decided to watch Years & Years from there. We sat down at a table, logged in to the wifi and waited for the set of Years & Years to begin at 4pm. Ten minutes before they were supposed to start Charlotte and I got off our seats and went to the front of the VIP area from where we were able to see the whole mainstage including the crowd. We waited and as the band came on stage the crowd went insane. 

They put on an amazing show and Olly, the lead singer, only spread joy as he was dancing and laughing all the time. He interacted a lot with the crowd and Charlotte and I couldn't stop smiling because he spread such a good mood. They played about an hour and opened up the mainstage, what honestly couldn't have been better. Everyone was singing along, dancing and even in the VIP area people were enjoying the show and danced around! We forgot about the heat and all the stress we have been through and lived the moment. 

After the set of Years & Years was done, we grabbed our stuff and went to the stage where The NBHD was supposed to play. The whole front row was already taken, besides where the entrance to the Backstage and the Photo area was so we stood there, as we weren't in the mood to stand in the middle of the crowd. 

After the act before The Neighbourhood was done, we waited for them to start as suddenly one of the Crew Members walked by. He came up to us and had a small talk with us, asked us how we were and if we were travelling with them again, before he went back on the stage to help the rest of the Crew build up the stage. A few minutes later he came back down again and walked out to the sound tech tent. He wished us a great show and told us to enjoy it.

The tent seemed to be really full and the crowd started cheering as the new intro of the band started and all five members walked on stage to start performing. Charlotte and I sang along to every song and went insane during the show, as we told ourselves to make the best out of this tour because we wouldn't know when we will see them again once this is over.