Festival Dirge

By Viktor Szentkiralyi

Budapest is the city of festivals all year round, but especially from early summer to late autumn, in countless art branches, in special venues, everyone can find the performances they like.

In 2022, a new festival was organized, the “Jazz Fest Budapest” according to its goal, it wished to provide high-quality and special experience on multiple venues for jazz lovers. Over sixteen days, around sixty performers entertained the audience.

In 2025 , in our article, we reported on the highly successful Al di Meola and Mike Stern concert held in the Erkel Theatre.

The festival proved that it is capable of inviting real international stars into the program and with this, it became one of the significant musical events in the life of Budapest.

For the year 2026, the organizers also started the organization of the festival with great hopes, and based on the previews, they managed to put together a significant program this time too.

In the focus of this year’s festival stood South Korean artists, among others Choo Younseung, Near East Quartet.

However, on the page of the festival organizer, a sad announcement stands now:

In the past four years of the festival, we organized 271 concerts, where nearly 1000 artists from 39 countries performed before the domestic audience. As a result of this, within four years, Hungarian musicians could give 30 concerts in 9 countries.

We are extremely proud of these results. For years, we have been struggling with the lack of subsidies, with their minimal volume. We realized the previous four festivals 90-95% from ticket sales. In 2026, by the fact that they do not wish to rent out the Erkel Theatre, we lost our main venue, therefore we were forced to look for an alternative solution to continue the festival.

The Capital City extended a helping hand, we received the Városháza Park. Here, however, a stage, auditorium, grandstand must be built, and all other services must be provided. These are incredibly high amounts, and on top of the honorariums and travel costs of foreign performers, these must also be pre-financed.

The volume of ticket sales fell very far short of expectations, only 26-27% of the total ticket contingency found a buyer. Besides this, problems affecting the whole event organizing sector, generated by recent events, also significantly hindered our work.

We had to realize that the festival became unfinancable. In order to avoid greater damages, tonight we had to make the sad and extremely painful decision:

WE CANCEL THE JAZZFEST BUDAPEST 2026 FESTIVAL.

We would like to communicate our situation and possibilities continuously and primarily uniformly, so it can easily happen that we will not be able to react immediately or substantively to individual inquiries. For these eventual inconveniences, we ask for your kind patience and understanding in advance.

The festival therefore became impossible, and all those jazz lovers who counted on it are disappointed. Worldwide, two choices stand before artistic productions: one is that they reflect the ever-growing costs in ticket prices, thereby closing off the works from the less affluent audience, or they help create the financial foundations with applications and subsidies.

In this year, the Jazz Fest is cancelled, and this, although perhaps it is not visible, still weakens the diversity of Budapest’s artistic life. We hope the festival organizers do not lose heart, and on new foundations, in 2027, JAZZ FEST will return to the joy of the lovers of the genre.