Garden Wonder introduces magnificent concerts in Budapest – Video & Photos

“I cannot sleep. I’m just thinking about Garden Wonder and I want to come back to Hungary” – said one musician after performing in Budapest for the first time. House concerts are popular in Western-European countries where musicians invited usually play music with smooth chill vibes. In Hungary, this trend and music style is not that well-known. To broaden the reputation of indie folk music and house concerts, Hanna Gulyás established Garden Wonder two years ago to provide a rare and unique opportunity for music lovers. I sat down with her to talk more about Garden Wonder.

What is Garden Wonder?

Garden Wonder is more of an experience than a simple concert. In Hungary, little concerts and gigs are popular in rooms and flats, but Garden Wonder is still different from that.

“It has its in-house features, but it is not 100% a house concert experience.”

In the United Kingdom, Germany and Switzerland these concerts are extremely popular and Hanna experienced these concerts on her own skin. There are concerts almost everywhere: in flats, restaurants, cafés, and even in yoga-centres. This house concert trend is popular and well-known in Western European countries and in the United States. Hanna emphasised, that in Hungary, only Garden Wonder organises similar house concerts and its aim is to introduce these special concerts to Hungary and to make indie folk music style more popular in the country. Moreover, Garden Wonder is a bridge to foreign artists, giving them the opportunity to increase their reputation in Hungary.

How was the idea of Garden Wonder born?

“I started it in June 2017, and I did not even plan to do this and had no experience at all. In the spring of 2017, my sister got a message from an American musician friend. He said that he wanted to come to Europe for the first time but had no money for the travel. But if we organised him a concert and people would pay for it he would be able to visit Budapest.”

Hanna’s sister showed her this message and as she is a big fan of music she started to organise her first ever house concert. This very first occasion was in her family’s garden and this is how the name Garden Wonder was born. Seventy people attended the concert. They had BBQ, campfire and, of course, music. The concert was a huge success and Hanna could pay the musician’s flight ticket back.

“After this occasion, I started to get loads of feedbacks about when the next ‘garden experience’ will be. To get more inspiration I moved to London for six months where I attended many house concerts to gain experience and ideas.”

How many members the team of Garden Wonder consists of?

The team of Garden Wonder consists of volunteers. Currently, Hanna has 10–14 enthusiastic people but the main engine is only her.

“I organise three or four meetings every week with my volunteers to catch up or to talk about a project. The ‘Wonder Crew’ attends every Garden Wonder concert where they constantly help to prepare every venue before the guests arrive. Everyone has their own roles, for example, taking pictures, videos, posting on our social media platforms, etc.”

How do you choose your artists for concerts?

Hanna decides which artists will have the opportunity to perform on the next Garden Wonder concert with the help of one or two other people and in some cases, the audience writes to her about which musicians they would love to see perform. On the official Facebook page of Garden Wonder, there is a Google Form where people can apply to be a volunteer or the next performing artist. The artists would generally represent the indie folk music style, but Garden Wonder broadened its repertoire with electro chill, pop, chill pop, rap, and ambient styles so far.

“They can either fill out the Google Form, or sometimes others give me ideas, otherwise I also like to discover new artists.” – explains Hanna.

Hanna uses a specific strategy with four points when she chooses future performers.

1. The music has to be of quality and it is also important for Garden Wonder to work with experienced musicians. Here the number of followers or reputation does not matter but only the music.
2. The music needs to be original. Garden Wonder never invites cover bands as it prefers and supports musicians who write their own original songs.
3. Technical features are also important when Hanna chooses the venue for the concert. It is important to know how many instruments the musician brings, and would the venue have enough space for the equipment and the audience. Also, the music the artist represents need to be compatible with the house concert atmosphere.
4. Garden Wonder only invites musicians if their music has the ‘spark effect’ which means you get goosebumps while listening to it.

How do you organise a concert?

Garden Wonder always chooses the international artist first to determine the whole concert’s concept. The next step is to choose the venue and the local or support musicians to perform. In the beginning, Hanna chose the venues for the concert: her acquaintances’ flats, her favourite cafés, etc. Since then, Garden Wonder organised many concerts and became known in the capital, and many venues offer their services for future concerts and are keen on hosting Garden Wonder.

“We have venues booked four months ahead. I always meet with the director or manager of the venue and we sit down to talk and to examine the venue’s services. The most important is that we would have enough floor space for the audience, and this year we are talking about approximately 50–100 guests. I always emphasise that Garden Wonder brings the audience, volunteers, sound equipment, and the performers.”

The location of the venue is always secret, and guests get notified about it via e-mail or WhatsApp one day before the concert. As the first concert venues were living rooms of Hanna’s friends they did not want to share the exact address on the Internet. Only those got the exact location who bought a ticket to Garden Wonder. Although most of these concerts today are in commercial places, Hanna decided to keep this ‘secret location’ tradition as it makes the whole event even more exciting. She added that there are guests who write to her days before the concert and try to persuade her to tell them the exact address of the location. The most special place to host Garden Wonder so far was an underground gallery.