Marc's Blog: festivals - Ozora Festival near Budapest, Hungary

2024/07/29 Ozora Festival near Budapest, Hungary

π 2024-07-29 01:01 in Clubbing, Festivals

After going to Boom in Portugal last year, Ozora was the other big psytrance festival I had to check out, and thankfully it didn't conflict with Untold this year, so I was able to attend just after tomorrowland. I would say it is indeed the biggest psytrance focussed festival in Europe and likely one the biggest ones in the world.

Getting There and Grounds

Getting ready before the festival, barely enough time to recharge my gear before going to Ozora:

Flight to Budapest

More last minute charging at the bus station to Ozora :)

waited 1h30 for the next shuttle, nice bus

Here's the map of the main things, as you can see, once inside it's not too much of a walk, but if you zoom out, you'll see it is bigger, and the road you have to walk from and back to if you don't have a car, is far!

Finally got there, but they dropped us a long walk away from the real entrance when you have heavy luggage, no idea why. I got lucky on the way in with a tractor ride that is only there randomly, so timing was good. On the way back however, I waited over 1h for the tractor that was supposed to get around, and it never came. Dragging my luggage back out was absolutely terrible since it was more than 50kg total, and of course it broke the wheels after being dragged in pebbles and dirt for too long.
Also, you'd better know where you are going since there is almost no cell once you go in, so you won't be able to find any maps or easily know where you are.

don't fall off :)

long ride up, I can only imagine how terrible it would have been without the lucky tractor

If you get lost:

cool signs, but the first time, it's confusing

After strategizing for an hour and walking around, found a good place for my tent:

view from my porch

many stores and dining hall

Charging was tricky, I had to use a nearby store's back plugs but my things were not secure and some of the store owners were not super happy. There wasn't a very good solution to this:

Power was non trivial, vendors and eating locations did have some power plugs, but of course leaving anything to charge was at your own risk, and theft was reported to be an issue. Honestly only people with a car they could lock up, were safe. Everyone else was taking risks and I heard people who had their entire luggage including passport stolen from their tent, not good :-/
But back to lights, kudos to all the people who brought some, including fancy ones

For most people, they had to hunt for a plug:

Now, you would say, why don't you just go use lockers, well, lockers were not really that but just a bunch of numbered holes that someone was kind of watching. I honestly don't think I'd feel that comfortable leaving my passport anywhere but a locked car, so I kept it on me the entire time, along with other things, which wasn't too convenient.

this was the 'lockers', would you leave your wallet, or passport, or computer there?

I had a massive failure of my LED strings, thankfully I had just enough tools to barely fix it:

There were basic stores close to where I camped:

prices were very reaosnable

Camping was everywhere and some things were far:

There was even a farm:

Middle Earth

One thing I really liked about Ozora, was the middle earth feel:

very cool

Interesting set list:

Also very nice at night:

row of food and drink stores with reasonable pricing

Also another row of random stores, mostly clothes and trinkets:

Mainstage

But of course, everyone was there for the music. There were multiple stages, but mainstage was the main one, and by a lot...

Of course, night was the best time:

yes, it is a bit crazy at times, yo have to live it

can be enjoyed from almost anywhere :)

I was pretty impressed by the amount of LEDs and lights, considering it was not easy to charge

things got crazy late at night, BPMs went higher and higher, reaching almost 200 :)

yes, it's real, this was captured by my phone

Other Stages

There were 5 or 6 stage depending on how you counted, one was not far from my tent. Yes, it was warm during the day, but they had you covered:

Lots of stages and lots of DJs, definitely a lot more variety than Boom:

People

Some people came with costumes, but not too many, and not too many LED costumes

this guy brought his bed at mainstage

found some friends

ok, and that too I guess:

Enough people brought shiny stuff, thank you:

nice outfit

DJs

Compared to boom, I liked the music better at Ozora, there was more variety, and more kinds I was able to enjoy. It was exiting to see some of my favorite psytrance DJs in their natural habitat :)

Electric Universe!

I was excited to see nice psytrance and Astrix of course:

Similarly, Flemming and Lawrence were loads of fun:

they found me for a picture :)

My last day before departure, I was super excited to see Man with No Name, whom I had never gotten to see before:

so thankful to have a picture with him

Would I go back? Should You Go?

Soon after that seeing Man with No Name, I had had more than plenty, almost a full week and it was intense, so I packed my tent, and did the long and painful walk back out to the shuttle back to the airport.

In theory there is a tractor that's supposed to do rounds and bring you back to the exit, but after 1H of waiting, no such luck. I had to do drag my luggage out a very long distance and partially destroy it in the process.

And it's now that I'm supposed to give you all my wisdom on Ozora :), so let's see what I can do:

it was a unique experience, I'm glad I did it

it was also rough and obviously far, getting in and out without a car and with luggage was unfortunately the worst experience of any festival I've been to.

specifically, going without a car to drive your stuff to your campsite and lock things securely, was difficult, I'd even say very painful if you were carrying all your gear like I was, including electronics, lots of batteries, chargers, decent size tent and all.

being dropped off not even at the real entrance, and the very long way in, if you're carrying any luggage, was punishing, especially if you aren't lucky enough to get the tractor ride. Maybe it is worth to rent a car for the week?

Yeah, you're going to tell me to travel light, but with all my LED gears, a proper size tent, clothes for a week, camera and laptop gear, and batteries, many batteries, it's not possible to be light. I really wish they had better help for people who have to carry stuff and can't be expected to drag it on a dirt path for several kilometers.

I arrived late monday, festival opened on friday and most people came early. I read about huge lines that backed up the main road, due to how inefficient the check in process was (thankfully not an issue by the time I arrived).

Check in process was manual ID verification before they would carefully put a wristband on you in a way you could not take it out. Honestly I'm fine with festivals verifying tickets, but when it's to that level (and Ozora is far from being the only one), it's not great.

the stories of theft I heard were not good, that included people losing all their luggage and belongings. That made me quite nervous for the rest of the week since you can't really lock a tent

for the average person, finding a plug to charge your phone will be fine, but if you have more gear like me, it's a lot less trivial (maybe again, a car would help)

the weather is uncertain, and it can rain a lot on some years, be ready

the middle earth village and decors were absolutely awesome and worth seeing. Let me actually say that it was truly unique and in some way worth by itself, going to Ozora to experience.

there was a good variety of psytrance and other music that did not feel as experimental as boom, so that was a plus. Actually to be more clear, there was enough variety of music at Ozora, that at all times there was something I could enjoy, so that was really a good thing.

cell phone service was close to non existent (boom had much better coverage).

there was some wifi close to vendors, but it was extremely poor. This means that meeting up with others via phone would not be easy.

the food options were varied and well priced. Similarly true for drinks.

few vendors took credit cards, but all of them gladly took Euros despite it not being legal tender in Hungary. I'll give a thumbs up for not requiring any fake and unreliable wristband virtual money. Real money worked great, thank you!

The only security was to make sure I had a valid ticket, nothing beyond that. That was nice and refreshing, outside of the theft issues.

Many folks, including most vendors, spoke little english but it was not an issue unless you really needed help with something specific

But would I go back?

Honestly, probably not. A few reasons:

some of the crowds were pretty far out for me, very hippie like to a level that was a bit difficult for me at times (and I've been to burning man 14 times, so I've seen a few things :) ).

I saw a few folks being very messed up on no idea what drugs it was, but it wasn't good. I remember one guy being dangerous and aggressive.

I saw demented parents taking a small crying child around the front row and looking like it was good when clearly the child wanted out

it looked cute, but the child looks very unhappy :(

I believe I heard someone ran into a big fire and died :-(

I got reasonably lucky with minimal rain, some years it's a lot lot worse

Overall I felt like I had a hard time fitting in and belonging, I can't blame others for that, I guess it just means it was at the edge of what's a good fit for me, hence my "probably not" answer. I'll admit that the poor transport options inside to carry luggage over long distances on foot, and the not feeling at peace due to the theft concerns, did not help.

I'm happy I got to see and experience it, I'm super happy I got to see some DJs and music I wouldn't have seen elsewhere, but otherwise it felt kind of rough, at least at times.
I hope this lets you decide whether you should go, or brings fun memories if you went :) and if you were wondering about Boom vs Ozora

Ozora vs Boom

Sure, I'll play :)

Boom is one year out of two, Ozora is every year

Ozora is 2-3 days longer than Boom technically but honestly you'll already do a lot with 6 days at each.

When you took the shuttle at Boom, you were prechecked and could enter directly without another line

Boom got you in much closer to your campsite. The Walk from the road to camping at Ozora was punishing

Boom is hot and dry, Ozora is warm and can get very rainy

Boom offered tipis and cardboard tents with matresses you could rent, that was a big plus for visitors. Ozora offered nothing, you had to bring your own gear. Many apparently buy gear after arriving in Budapest, and then discard it :-(

More stages at Ozora, and more music types at Ozora. I definitely prefered the music variety at Ozora

The bus ride to Boom was much longer and the line to leave boom on the last day was ridiculous (many hours) while Ozora has reserved shuttle slots without any wait

Cell phone at Ozora was mostly unusable, while it worked fairly well at Boom

Boom required unreliable wristband money to pay for some things, Ozora was cash only

Prices for food and drinks were very reasonable at both

Boom had better stores than Ozora from variety of food to camping and cooking gear

Boom had nice decors and art, but Ozora had overall much better decors atmosphere that sure felt like middle earth

There you go, not sure if that helps :)