Sziget Festival founder Károly Gerendai is back in the fold as the flagship Hungarian event prepares for its 2026 edition, the first outing since he came back on board after taking ownership back from event giant Superstruct.

The founder, though no stranger to the caprice of festival management, is frank in conversations with IQ about what has changed since he was last in charge of the event, but no less ambitious about the future prospects of Sziget, whose 2026 celebration is wheeling out several novel changes to staging and programming in an effort to reorient its direction.

Any conversation about the future of Hungary’s biggest music festival cannot help but start by discussing what the country’s recent elections mean for not just Sziget, but the breadth of youth-driven artistic events across the country.

Gerendai sees the replacement of a system that has been in power for 16 years with “almost unlimited authority” as a great opportunity for the country and its international reputation. He notes that now it will become easier “for people to come to Sziget who previously did not want to travel to Hungary for reasons of principle”.

Sziget has consistently stood up for its values of openness, inclusivity, and tolerance, he says, while maintaining the festival “never engaged directly in politics”. Nevertheless, he says it is “no coincidence” that its slogan became “Island of Freedom,” as the event became, in his estimation, “one of the last strongholds of this mindset in Hungary”.

“This also meant that despite our festival being Hungary’s number one tourist attraction, we have not received any public funding in recent years,” Gerendai notes. “In fact, we have often had to operate in a hostile environment, while many of our regional competitors receive betwe

Exclusive: Sziget’s founder reveals post-Superstruct rebirth plan