A quarter century of Wacken Open Air!!

Dear Metalheads,

25 years ago, when we started this adventure, absolutely no one in our town Wacken would have thought that this small festival with only 800 visitors would turn into the great metal fest it is now with more than 75.000 awesome fans from all over the world!

Now a quarter century of heavy metalness has come to an end in the early hours of the morning. The weather was perfect and we celebrated our anniversary together with bands from the whole history of Wacken. And we owe all that success only to you – THE BEST FANS IN THE WORLD!!! YOUR SUPPORT IS INCREDIBLE!

As in recent years, we had 75.000 visitors and more than 9.500 participants like artists, suppliers, traders, our awesome crew, the press, authorities and the inhabitants of our “Full Metal Village”.

Besides a “Best of” line-up from 25 years of W:O:A history, there were a lot of innovations and changes. The most noticeable of which was moving the security checks to the entrance of the Wacken Plaza and the entrance to the Metalmarket. With this, every visitor had to be checked only once and could move freely around the festival area. In addition, some smaller locations were moved and refined. We provided free WiFi for the first time and introduced some new areas like the Metal Heart. And last but not least, there was the DKMS event to fight blood cancer.

Also the foldable 1litre bottles included in this years Full:Metal:Bag have stand the test and enjoyed great popularity during these warm festival days.

As always, we sincerely want to thank you for your amazing support throughout the years. Without you, the W:O:A would not be what it is today: the greatest and most peaceful Heavy Metal festival in the world!

IMPORTANT!: We appreciate every feedback regarding the festival, be it in our forum, via Facebook or in our online poll. We will evaluate all the input you share with us, and will try to apply it in future editions of the fest. THANK YOU!

Last but not least, we want to thank all the local residents in Wacken, Gribbohm, Holstenniendorf, Besdorf, Bokelrehm, Bokhorst, Nienbüttel and Agethorst who have welcomed all the metalheads with their kind hospitality and showed an impressive display of Wacken banners in their communities. We are very thankful and happy about your support and your identification with our - and your - festival!!!

Press reports about the W:O:A 214 will follow as well as pictures from our festival photographers in our gallery.

The festival is the headliner and the bands are playing their best of program!

We are looking forward to next year! For the 26th time it will be:

Faster – Harder – Louder >> See you in Wacken 2015 – rain or shine<<

Thanks for your support, Metalheads! In Metal we trust….. your W:O:A Team