Yeah we had these two music festivals every year, one in Budapest on an island basically smack dab in the middle of the city, yet separate enough that it was allowed to host it. Entry possible only through two small bridges or by boat. It's called The Sziget (=island) fest. It's usually a 10ish day long event with multiple large and small stages and concerts from the biggest performers (saw my first Iron Maiden and Prodigy live there) to the very smallest bands, from all types of music. Also with multiple tents for spiritual stuff, dancing yoga hand craft stuff, learn proper first aid, donate blood, and even the military is usually there with a tent so you can practice stripping an AK and shooting air rifles. So the usual stuff. It's multiple square km big, with large tenting areas so you can camp there for the whole duration if you wish to.
It dates back to the 90s I think, and I was always told by my parents it's a place of degenerate no good druggies and hobos and kidnappers and murderers, no sane good person ever even thinks about going there if they want to live!
Ofc the reality is the exact opposite. It's by far the most free and welcoming place I've ever been, filled with the loveliest and most kind ppl I've ever met.
On my first time there when I entered the gates and started my walk towards the venues, I was wearing my Matrix style cheap long leather coat, wearing all black, a young nerdy looking fat fuck sweating in the afternoon sun, with an unlit cig in his mouth trying to act tough while being totally lost in the chaos of music and endless ppl... Not 30 seconds in as I was trying to get my evidently trash (freshly bought, filled and expensive genuine) Zippo to light up, some waaaay out of my league cute girls coming the other way started to shout at me in a language I couldn't understand!
When they reached me they were pointing at my cig in my mouth, I was like what the fuck is going on? What did I do wrong? Are they some weird non-smoking Karen's or some shit?
One of em grabbed it out of my mouth!
She proceeded to turn it around in her hand and stuck it back in my mouth, gave me a light, with a smile on her face. And ofc that's when the penny dropped, I had it in the wrong way around the whole time. (for those of you who don't smoke, lighting the wrong end is like inhaling an ashtray or burning rubber. She saved me from that) They just said goodbye and walked on...
Yeah, fucking crazed murderers, all of em...
The other large music fest we got going is near the Austrian border in a field next to the city of Sopron called Volt Festival. I still don't know whether Volt stands for voltage or the word "was", the literal translation.
It's a much smaller event with the same vibes of international performers. Including the camp sites, although the location for tenting is way worse imo as its partly located on a hill side, and there aren't enough trees so you end up sweating to death soon after you finally fell asleep at 5am when the music dies down enough, and the girl in the neighbouring tent stops moaning...
Well, actually, we might have been part of that last problem for the other campers around us as well hehehe... Good times.
Ps: I so fucking hate camping on a hillside, having to brace against rolling down while trying to sleep off a hangover is not relaxing in the slightest.