▲ 58 r/sziget
Fact checking “Sziget always makes a loss” claims
I‘m so tired of people regurgitating this nonsense that Gerendai always says that Sziget makes a loss, or the people who found the Wikipedia page on Hollywood-accounting and now feel like they’re experts.
| Year | Profit / Loss (Ft m) | Result | Scope |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1993 | -3.5 | 🔴 Loss | Festival |
| 1994 | -18.5 | 🔴 Loss | Festival |
| 1995 | +9.4 | 🟢 Profit | Festival |
| 1996 | +12.5 | 🟢 Profit | Festival |
| 1997 | +21 | 🟢 Profit | Festival |
| 1998 | 0 | ⚪ Break-even | Festival |
| 1999 | 0 | ⚪ Break-even | Festival |
| 2000 | +45 | 🟢 Profit | Festival |
| 2001 | +50 | 🟢 Profit | Festival |
| 2002 | 0 | ⚪ Break-even | Festival |
| 2003 | +30 | 🟢 Profit | Festival |
| 2004 | +50 | 🟢 Profit | Festival |
| 2005 | +50* | 🟢 Profit | Festival |
| 2006 | +50 | 🟢 Profit | Festival |
| 2007 | +2.7 | 🟢 Profit | Festival |
| 2008 | +106 | 🟢 Profit | Festival |
| 2009 | +157 | 🟢 Profit | Festival |
| 2010 | +99 | 🟢 Profit | Festival |
| 2011 | -102 | 🔴 Loss | Festival |
| 2012 | -46 | 🔴 Loss | Festival |
| 2013 | -165 | 🔴 Loss | Festival |
| 2014 | +312 | 🟢 Profit | Festival |
| 2015 | +445 | 🟢 Profit | Festival |
| 2016 | ~+1,500 | 🟢 Profit | Company |
| 2017 | -655** | 🔴 Loss | Company |
| 2018 | +1,420 | 🟢 Profit | Company |
| 2019 | +708 | 🟢 Profit | Company |
| 2020 | -1,440 | 🔴 Loss | Company / festival cancelled |
| 2021 | -803 | 🔴 Loss | Company / festival cancelled |
| 2022 | +355 | 🟢 Profit | Company |
| 2023 | ~-1,800 | 🔴 Loss | Company |
| 2024 | ~-3,800 | 🔴 Loss | Company |
| 2025 | ~-2,800 | 🔴 Loss | Company |
| 2026 | >-1,500*** | 🔴 Loss | Preliminary festival estimate |
Sources
The main historical source for 1993–2015 is Forbes Hungary’s 2016 profile of Sziget founder Károly Gerendai. It contains a chart specifically titled “A Sziget Fesztivál eredményessége az indulás óta” (“The profitability/results of Sziget Festival since its launch”) with annual figures going back to 1993:
Forbes Hungary, Gerendai Károly / Sziget (2016):
https://forbes.hu/files/60/10/60109b36d1f40dc96d738e7ef3116c4e.pdf
Later company financial results and additional context:
Világgazdaság, 2017 result and ~Ft 1.5bn 2016 profit:
https://www.vg.hu/penz-es-tokepiac/2018/08/veszteseges-is-a-sziget-meg-nem-is
HVG, 2018 result:
https://hvg.hu/gazdasag/20190826_A_Sziget_koltsegvetesenek_125_szazaleka_volt_a_berleti_dij
Mfor, 2019 result:
https://mfor.hu/cikkek/makro/sziget-elmaradt-az-idei-buli-hozza-sem-nyultak-a-700-millios-profithoz.html
HVG, 2020 result:
https://hvg.hu/kkv/20210531_sziget_fesztival_veszteseg_jarvany_beszamolo
HVG, 2021–2024 financial history:
https://hvg.hu/kkv/20250602_Kozel-4-milliard-forintos-minuszt-hozott-ossze-a-Sziget
HVG, 2025 result:
https://hvg.hu/kkv/20260528_sziget-fesztival-gerendai-karoly-ceges-beszamolo
Tudás.hu, preliminary 2026 loss:
https://tudas.hu/15-milliard-forintos-veszteseget-termelt-a-sziget-fesztival/
* Forbes’ retrospective chart gives Ft 50m for 2005, while contemporary reporting put the profit at roughly Ft 65m. I used the Forbes number to keep the 1993–2015 series methodologically consistent.
** 2017 is an accounting loss rather than an operating loss. Reported operating profit was approximately Ft 912m before a large write-down.
*** 2026 is not a final accounting result. Ft 1.5bn was the planned loss, and management subsequently said the actual loss would exceed it.
u/Individual_Author956 — 2 days ago
Bus advertising the 2007 opening of Berlin Brandenburg Airport, which actually opened in 2020
“BBI. The new airport for Berlin and Brandenburg. In Schönefeld. From 2007.”
Spotted in 2026, a true blast from the past.
The airport eventually opened in October 2020 as Berlin Brandenburg Airport (BER), after years of delays and cost overruns. Construction began in 2006 and the airport was originally supposed to open in 2011. Instead, it opened almost nine years late. The final cost grew from an initial estimate of about €2 billion to more than €7 billion.
One detail that is less widely known is that the project was long branded as “Berlin Brandenburg International” (BBI). A large amount of marketing material used the BBI abbreviation before planners realised that the IATA airport code BBI was already assigned to Bhubaneswar Airport in India. The new airport therefore adopted the code BER, which had already been used as the metropolitan code for Berlin’s airports. So by the time the airport finally opened, much of the BBI branding had become a relic of an earlier plan.
u/Individual_Author956 — 3 months ago