Happening on the sprawling lawns of a lakefront recreation area in Zamárdi on the south shore of Lake Balaton near Siófok, this sun-splashed festival is one of the most popular electronic-music festivals in Central Europe, attracting herds of swimsuit-clad party people from all around the world. As of press time, passes and day tickets are still available for each day of this year’s Balaton Sound Festival (July 8-12); complete ticket information is available here, or at the festival’s information booth in Budapest’s Erzsébet Square.
Getting to Zamárdi from Budapest is easy by rail – direct trains depart from Déli Station every day at 7:30am, 9:30am, 11:30am, 1:30pm, 3:30pm, 5:30pm, and 7:30pm (see complete timetables). From the Zamárdi train station, the festival entrance is a 15-minute walk towards the lakefront (just follow the shirtless hordes). Driving to Balaton Sound is fairly straightforward – take Motorway M7 west from Budapest and keep following it until you pass the exit for Siófok; the exit for Zamárdi will appear soon afterwards, and plentiful signage leads to the festival grounds, although the nearest available parking spot might be several blocks away from the entrance.
After arrival, festival patrons float between various bar tents and grassy sunbathing spots, with swimming in the lake allowed all day long. Live DJ sets and concerts enliven the summery scene on diverse stages, with international electronica superstars appearing alongside top Magyar mixmasters – along with headliners like Tiësto on July 8th, Axwell & Ingrosso on July 9th, and Jason Derulo on July 10th, here are some other performers that will surely make a splash.
Pan-PotJuly 11, 3:00am – Telekom Arena Pan-Pot, named after a piece of gear, is a duo aiming to move bodies with their inspired music. Both DJs deliver on that promise with sets that rope together minimal, coolly restrained techno and hot-and-heavy house. Anyone who’s ever played with an analog synthesizer knows that all those dials are there to be touched; Pan-Pot reaches out and touches right back — with a love slap from the heart of the Berlin underground.
The Biebers
July 10, 5:30pm – Jäger Arena “Traditional dance music for drunk children” – that’s the self-described style and sound of this band founded by one-time talent-show star Peti Puskás and his younger brother, Dani Puskás. Although they’ve preferred to keep their audience guessing about who writes these catchy and poppy hits – even when they were winning awards – they finally revealed their identity two years ago. Since then, the Biebers evolved into one of the most popular Hungarian bands, now counting seven members, but one thing remained the same: their ability to write songs that will make you shake what you’ve got and sing along. They are currently working on their first album, but that won’t hold them back from playing at all the major Hungarian festivals this summer – including Balaton Sound.
George FitzGeraldJuly 10, midnight – B My Lake TerraceGeorge FitzGerald has spent the last half-decade carving out a space for himself in the British electronica scene; his sound is somewhere between pop-friendly house and garage and patient, muted techno. It works well in a club, blasting through the speakers, but also at home, alone, when you’ve laid back and put on the headphones. Think of acts like Disclosure or Jon Hopkins, and you already have a good idea of what to expect. He won’t rip up the dance floor like headliners Afrojack or Dimitri Vegas & Like Mike will, but if you feel the need for some emotion-heavy slow jams, you know where to find them.RedRedJuly 9, 4:00pm – Jäger Arena M3nsa, one half of the irreverent Ghanaian rapping and producing duo FOKN Bois, recently relocated to Budapest and forged a new musical union with ELO, a member of the best Hungarian hip-hop/reggae/dancehall band Irie Maffia. ELO and FOKN Bois already collaborated on “The FOKN Dunaquest in Budapest” EP, and now here is the follow-up in the form of some more African electronic dance music, fusing influences from all around the world into a three-minute-long partystarter. Oh, and RedRed is named after a popular Ghanaian comfort food comprised of plantains and spicy black-eyed peas cooked with red-palm oil. How cool is that?
Rae Sremmurd
July 12, 5:30pm – Jäger Arena
The duo of Slim Jimmy and Swae Lee already took over the Billboard charts with their earworm hits “No Flex Zone” and “No Type”, and last year, they signed to Mike Will Made-It’s Interscope imprint EarDrummers. The label released their debut album, “SremmLife”, in January – and it certainly lives up to the hype surrounding it. “It’s an album that gives as much as it gains, both in trap-flow intensity and emotional catharsis.” – wrote Pretty Much Amazing, and we couldn’t agree more. Not a surprise that they already worked with Big Sean, Nicki Minaj, and Young Thug. One of the hottest acts of this year’s Balaton Sound!
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