Because Work of Great Import to Society energizes us and makes us happy, we went to the island on the Second Moving In Day. Well, the naming of days on Sziget is frankly becoming increasingly occult and convoluted, so perhaps we should stick to calling it Monday. But the important thing is that we were there and we have Useful Information which should facilitate your visit later this week. Scientific precision is another great favourite of ours, so here goes everything grouped nicely for user friendliness.

The Weather: Expect everything. We’ll have gradually increasing day time temperatures up to Friday, with scorching heat expected for Thursday, and storms on Friday. Night temperatures will drastically decrease from Saturday though, which should also be rainy. The island will thus reveal itself alternatively in all its muddy and dusty glory. Year 25 is a weather all-inclusive as it should be. Best tip: pack all the clothes you have and drink plenty of Unikum.  Vitamin C might also be a promising idea. But not without Unikum.

Locations: Everything is where it should be! The big guns (Main Stage-OTP/A38- World Music Stage-Party Arena) are in the same place as last year, so finding them should be a piece of cake- except of course it won’t because it’s not really Sziget if you do not get lost. Other popular venues, such as the Colosseum, Magic Mirrors, sports and art area have also kept their coordinates, with occasional minor stages popping up in unexpected places- we found something called the Music Box and I climbed on it. My 15 seconds of Sziget-Warholian glory. Best tip: Don’t worry, you’ll mislocate a stage anyways. My spell check says mislocate does not exist as a word. Well on Sziget it does.

Demographics:  To George Constanza’s question for the ages (But who are the Dutch?!), the answer is easy. They are basically every third person on Sziget, particularly the ones who look very comfortable in very skimpy clothes on fairly cold nights. Those who are not Dutch, but sound similarly funny are Flemish-speaking Belgians, while the French speaking ones blend in with the other major demographic. The French, obviously. There are large contingents of Brits and New-Zealanders too, logically located in the nigh-Glastonburian murky habitat close to the beach. Eastern Europe seems to be most represented by Russians and Ukrainians, with Turkish being also frequently overheard yet again. Best tip: The French will hug you on muddy days, so le run as soon as you see a tricolore.

The Beach Situation: According to the decidedly un-Hasselhoffian lifeguards (as in they looked like they can actually save people from drowning and not just frolic in frothy waves) we found at the location, the river’s level will allow for some bathing in the days to follow, which sounds grand given the return of Lucifer (aka the mean Saharan heatwave making our summer miserable). Another development is the decidedly capitalistic evolution of the chill out tent, where you now need to rent your pillows. Though perhaps this will keep them cleaner in the long run. Best tip: Bring your own pillow? It’s actually a bad tip, cause that will be cumbersome, but I had to try.

Food and drinks. The horror lives on- Dreher is still king, their major innovation for this year being tank beer. Really, all I needed from life. Dreher in a tank. The good thing is that some people, whom I presently love to shreds, are working as busy bees on putting up the spritzer area, and my first drink there will be to their long lasting health and fitness. The food landscape is almost unchanged at first glance, though the best places are never up during moving in days. We have spotted the Zing truck though, which means nothing catastrophically bad can happen, but keeping fingers crossed for the Mexkitchen truck next to Europa Stage to materialize as well. Best tip: You can never go wrong with Zing and spritzer.