This years Bonusz Festival took place at Syma sports Arena in Budapest, the space was more than enough to support over 5000 people, by my standards, there were somewhere around 8000 participants at the event. Despite of the metal detectors at the entrance, where various harmless objects were confiscated by security, and small bars and insufficient food stands, this year’s edition was a success due to the wide range of dj`s: from Rush and Chris Liebing to Tiga or David Guetta.

There were two stages to visit: T-Mobile Arena B with Chris Liebing, Dj Rush, Josh Wink, Monika Kruse, Brian Sanhaji, Phillip Straub and Hot X, and the Beck`s VisualPower Arena A with headliner David Guetta, Junkie Xl, Hernan Cattaneo, Timo Maas, Tiga or nic Fanciulli.

In A Arena first-off headliner Timo Maas managed to pump the atmosphere up for a short 15 minutes with great sounds, after this his set became dull - same rhythm, same sounds, same thing for over and hour. Luckily, Junkie Xl was just around the corner and his extremely pumping set made the whole crowd go mad. At one time I recall him almost climbing on his dj desk, to grab properly the buttons of the mixer. Long story short: he pulled out an awesome set, and what a show it was. Next head-liner Hernan Cattaneo provided a great excuse for the crowd to take a breath, his set was maybe too progressive for the public, the reason for which many have left the area. Nextup: David Guetta, he made a lot of people interested in his set, as the arena become over crowded in the first minutes of his set, only for the crowd to disappear after a few tracks. His set was awful. He played whole tracks and even let a small 2 sec pause between them, furthermore, he played the best 50 tracks in the last 10 years. Fortunately his set didn`t last long and Tiga was there to save the night. His techno with heavy electro influences made the crowd go up in flames as he drove all of us straight to insanity. After that, Nic Fanciulli provided an energic, warm set, just perfect for a cool Budapest morning.

At the B arena the local djs made a wonderful warm-up for Phillip Straub`s dynamic and most energic set. Next up Hot X managed to be the breakthrough of the evening with his outstanding performance, excellent selection of tracks, and simply awesome vibe. You could really felt him playing with your brain and you could sense the sounds twisting and turning in your head. Monika Kruse continued his work, in addition bringing a large range of funky and groovy beats. The climax of the night at this stage was the set of Dj Rush who didn’t let down any hard-techno fans. Sadly to say, Chris Liebing let down most of the fans there for him. His set was really dull and lifeless. Even Brian Sanhaji was rather disappointing, as he didn’t manage to do a proper liveset, even though he had a vocalist on stage with him.

All in all it was a great event, lots of different dj styles, a great diversity in sounds, awesome crowd and atmosphere. A great city even though the people in personal weren’t that great, they where just, too mean I guess. Cheers!

toxic-culture.org would like to thank to Techwabbit for sending us this great review.