Wacken Open Air is entering it’s dirty 30’s this year. Given how astounding last years festival was, we couldn’t be more excited.

It’s no secret that we here at The Metalist have a love for Wacken Open Air. Why? In 15 years of our attendance, we’ve never had a poor experience. Quite the contrary even – every experience has had something blissfully memorable involved. You all know how we rant and rave about it, and we’re going to do it again.

Last years festival was probably one of the best on record. This point is underlined by the fact that the upcoming 30th edition of Wacken sold out not a mere 24 hours after last years event has wrapped up. Pure dedication from the Wacken veterans to celebrate what is bound to be an epic celebration of the Holy Land of heavy metal.

Whether you’re going or not, here’s what you have to look forward to, or are missing out on respectively:

As we always say, Wacken Open Air is all about the whole experience. We’ve written timeless Survival guides to the festival to help channel the countless amounts of things to see and do outside the epic plethora of bands playing.

But looking at that line-up, there is some seriously great bands that will be making full of use of both the colossal and cosy Wacken stages. Last time Sabaton played, they ended up making a DVD out of their monumental performance. Slayer will be hitting the festival for the very last time, Demons & Wizards return after nearly 2 decades of absence, and celtic-metallers Eluveitie are back to spark the 80’000 strong folk party.

Every year the festival is a celebration of the best in heavy metal, and an homage to the best fans in the world. In the vise of the festival entering it’s dirty thirties, you know the party is going to ramp up that little bit extra, or a lot extra…however much beer you manage to get down really!

“See you in Wacken, Rain or Shine!”