Another decade Wacken Open Air is coming closer to its end – Thanks for W:O:A 2018!

With the fading sounds of the last bands which played the Holy Ground yesterday the 29th edition of Wacken Open Air ended very peaceful and filled with lots of memorable moments.

Once again fans and bands from more than 80 nations have celebrated the best metal party of the year with us and there is nothing more to say than: THANX FOR YOUR SUPPORT, METALHEADS!

During the festival week the heatwave had northern Germany fully in its grip – In the last 3 years we more or less experienced the RAIN side of W:O:A but this year we got a triple load of SHINE! With temperatures beyond 30 degrees the celebrating metalheads transformed the holy ground into a single giant dustcloud! Due to the good weather conditions we had a relatively smooth arrival phase and the campgrounds were in good conditions. And also the crew once again did everything possible to enable you a stress free arrival and an amazing festival experience!

Thanks to the traffic forecast and the cancelled early arrival fee the arriving fans were distributed evenly across Monday to Wednesday and a big thanks for this goes to all participating fans that filled out the Arrival survey.

THE HIGHLIGHTS OF 2018

On Wednesday the Festival Area finally opened ist doors and the first wave of Metal Battle bands showed what they were made of while the Wasted Wednesday, our thrash evening at the Wasteland Stage, blasted the audience away for the very first time. And also the ESL Arena Wacken which combined eSports and Heavy Metal festival experience in a very new theme world opened its doors and was crowded day by day from more and more metalheads.

On Thursday the infield opened and the Night To Remember for the very first time took place on all three stages! Bands like Danzig, Dirkschneider, Judas Priest or Behemoth on FASTER & HARDER as well as Tremonti, Oomph! or Hatebreed on the LOUDER STAGE opened up the infield with brutal power!

At the same time the Bullhead City Tent was destroyed during the Night to Dismember featuring bands like Converge, Watain or Dying Fetus! In the following days more than 100 other bands delivered amazing shows on all 8 stages. Bands like In Flames, Nightwish, Doro, Running Wild, Dimmu Borgir, Arch Enemy or Helloween with their Pumkins United Show (just to name a few) were tying show highlight on show highlight.

WHAT WAS NEW?

This year Cashless Payment was possible on the whole festival area so that every festival visitor was able to buy food, drinks and merchandise via their W:O:A Cards (besides regular cash).

The ESL Arena Wacken celebrated ist premiere this year. In this new area gaming enthusiastic metalheads were able to try out games like PUBG, League of Legends, Streetfighter, Tower Tag and several other games and were also able to participate on tournaments. Further there were show tournaments with pro-teams and also bands like Enslaved, Epica and Feuerschwanz (just to name a few) showed up to play several games. Several concerts were also accompanied by our first sign language interpreter (many thanks to Laura M. Schwengberger). Last but not least we want to mention the new World Metal Camp which was build on Campground A (thanks to Kasper Molin & Crew). Exactly 666 persons from more than 40 countries joined the camp which was organized by our travel partners and showed once more that Metalheads, not matter from which part of the world, are one big family!

Important: As always, we are very much looking forward to your comments and suggestions, be it in our forum, on Facebook or the online survey (in preparation). We will review them all and take everything into consideration to improve the Wacken Open Air further. A lot of little things can make a festival better. Thank you!

Last but not least we want to thank all the fine people of the villages Wacken, Gribbohm, Holstenniendorf, Besdorf, Bokelrehm, Bokhorst, Nienbüttel, Agethorst, Vaale and Nutteln, who have once again displayed their unique and heartwarming hospitality to all Metal fans as well as us, especially during the bad weather at the beginning of the week. They also readily took part in our campaign to let the W:O:A flags fly on all streets.

Recap and press reports about W:O:A 2018 will follow as well as pictures from our official festival photographers in our photo gallery.

We are looking forward to next year when we can proudly proclaim for the 30th time:

Faster - Harder - Louder >> See you in Wacken 2019 - rain or shine <<

THE FESTIVAL IS THE HEADLINER AND THE BANDS PAY THEIR BEST-OF SET

THE BANDS WERE GOOD BUT THE CREW & FANS WERE BILLIANT!

BLASTING THE NORHT IN AUGUST!

IN LOVING MEMORY OF THOMAS HESS

Thanks for your support, Metalheads! In Metal we Trust!

Your W:O:A Team