Now They’re Calling It Failsziget

Acts including Kaiser Chiefs, Crystal Castles, Dragonforce, La Roux and Dirtyphonics failed to show after deposits failed to materialize, while Spanish ska-punk band Ska-P performed only because Sziget Cultural Management agreed to guarantee the fee.

Ska-P are regulars at the Hungarian festival. The firm behind Sziget was also a partner in Felsziget until 2010, when it let go of the Romanian event.

This year’s Felsziget claimed to have had 58,000 visitors across four days (July 18-21), but Clujlife reporter Gabriel Aldea reckons the real figure was closer to 20,000.

Ziar De Cluj reckoned at least half of the official crowd figures “were Martians and therefore invisible to anyone except the organizers in their ivory tower.”

Felsziget chief Laszlo Bodor released a statement blaming banks for the deposits not going through.

“The online banking system had only initialized the transaction but not processed it,” he said. So far he’s declined to comment on fans’ complaints about bad sound and poor organization.