Important
This article is VERY old (older than 2 years)!
That was W:O:A 2019 - our review!
We’re almost speechless: That’s our kind of birthday party! 30 years of Wacken Open Air, 30 years of metal madness and fun. And we owe that to all 75.000 of you, our great W:O:A family! For four days, you celebrated the loudest party of the year, with more than 200 bands providing the soundtrack. Much respect, Metalheads. We won’t forget this!
Be it Metal, Rock or any of the countless other variations of heavy music - it could all be heard on eleven stages all over the festival grounds. Once again, the festivities already started on Wednesday which has grown to be a almost full festival day with bands like Burning Witches, Axxis, The Adicts, Sweet, Rose Tattoo and Sisters of Mercy.
On Thursday, Sabaton delivered a gigantic double show – on both of the main stages simultaneously! The first of many highlights, and the largest concert those Swedes ever played. No surprise the infield was completely full of raging metalheads. Gigantic.
Friday brought a whole lot of double shows: Body Count feat. Ice-T rocked the Holy Ground for the first time ever at their only German festival show in 2019, and they went down a storm. The same goes for Demons & Wizards, the project of Hansi Kürsch (Blind Guardian) and Jon Schaffer (Iced Earth), before the biggest farewell of the year took place right here in Wacken: The might Slayer played their last German Open Air show ever. Let’s be honest here, friends: We all had a tear in our eye, didn’t we?
More fine noise was on offer on Saturday with metalcore greats Of Mice & Men, Bullet For My Valentine and Parkway Drive. For the epic finale, Rage played with the Lingua Mortis Orchestra, a fitting end for a great weekend.
Apart from the music, we worked hard on all the other things to see and do in Wacken as well taking care of your daily needs. We are proud of the collaboration with our new partner Kaufland and the massive Metal-Market (1200 square metres!) which offered everything necessary for a great weekend. By the way, bestsellers were folding chairs, ice cubes, bbq meat and - SURPRISE - beer!
Another premiere was the Wacken Future Factory, a new public forum offering the opportunity to shape the future of the festival. In workshops, roundtables and talks topics like sustainability, reduction of waste, food option and „glamping“ were discussed.
All the gamers showed up day after day at our Full Metal Gaming Village which was even presented by Trivium frontman Matthew K. Heafy this year. Games for every taste were ready to go, for example „World Of Tanks“, „DOTA 2“, „Days Gone“ or „Crash Team Racing Nitro-Fueled“.
Oh, and there’s one thing that made us especially happy: Thanks to the support of thousands of metal fans we were able to bring the band Doch Chkae from Cambodia to Wacken finally. In 2018 they were refused the necessary visa, but this time they were allowed to leave the country to be able to play our Wasteland Stage on Friday. Thanks to all of you for celebrating with them.
A big thank you also goes to our sponsors, service providers and partners, who make it possible for us to realize the festival year after year as planned. Beck's, Kaufland, Telekom, Red Bull, Jägermeister, Melitta, JTI, EMP, Coca-Cola, Wavin, Soundboks, GP Joule, Wunderino, paydirekt, Wera Werkzeuge, GeloRevoice, Bundeswehr, star Tankstelle, Ohropax, Volksbanken Raiffeisenbanken, Hobby, Deutsche Post, bofrost, Bull's-Eye, World of Tanks and many other companies contribute to the success. Thank you very much!
Of course the party next year shall be as great, which is why we can confirm the first round of bands for 2020: Judas Priest, Amon Amarth, Mercyful Fate, At The Gates (Slaughter Of The Soul show), Hypocrisy, Sodom (Agent Orange show), Venom, Death Angel, Beast In Black, Nervosa, Cemican. And there will be more. Much more.
And this first litter seems to be very well received, because the Wacken Open Air 2020 is already completely sold out. Thank you very much for your gigantic trust, your support and your love for our festival.
At the end we have just two more requests for you:
1. Please take part in our big survey for Wacken Open Air 2019! Only this way we can improve the festival for you.
2. Don't buy tickets via the black market! Not only do you pay excessive prices, you also risk buying a fake or deactivated ticket. We will set up a waiting list for 2020 which will give you the chance to buy tickets at the original price.
See you in Wacken - Rain or Shine!
Your W:O:A Crew
