Festivals
Roskilde: The Festival That Gives All Its Money Away
Eight days, 130,000 people, 32,000 volunteers, and a profit that vanishes into charity
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Festivals
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Festivals
Copenhell 2026: The Maiden Voyage, Again
Iron Maiden back on top of the harbour, and a festival that has finally become an institution
Festivals
Roskilde 2025: Still Giving It All Away
Olivia Rodrigo, Charli XCX and Nine Inch Nails on the same bill — and the money still walks out the door to charity
Festivals
Hellfest: France's Cathedral to Loud
How a Muscadet wine town of 7,500 became the loudest place in France every June
Festivals
Copenhell 2025: Is It Still a Metal Festival?
Slipknot, Billy Idol and The Prodigy walk into a shipyard — and the genre argument follows them in
Festivals
Heartland: The Festival for People Who Read the Programme
Music, art, gastronomy and high-minded talks in the grounds of a Renaissance castle
Festivals
Karmøygeddon and Blastfest: Norway's Small Metal Gatherings
One grassroots survivor on an island, one Bergen ambition that burned bright and folded
Festivals
With Full Force: East Germany's Extreme-Metal Institution
How a 2,500-strong gig in Saxony became eastern Germany's trendsetting scene festival
Festivals
Alcatraz: Belgium's Hardcore-and-Metal Prison Break
How an indoor one-dayer in Deinze became a four-day prison-themed metal fortress
Festivals
Rockharz: The Deep-Cut German Fields
A festival that started as Rock Against the Right and grew into Germany's third-biggest metal weekend
Festivals
Tinderbox, Odense: The Corporate Danish Festival
What a private-equity festival in Hans Christian Andersen's town does well, and what it can never be
Festivals
Copenhell 2024: Bigger, Broader, Louder
The year the harbour festival grew a hundred-band lineup and a wider church
Festivals
Copenhell: Building Hell on a Harbour
How a rusted shipyard became the loudest week in Denmark
Festivals
Distortion: The Week Copenhagen's Streets Become the Venue
How a Frenchman's club night turned into a five-day mobile street party
Festivals
Roadburn: The Doom Pilgrimage Where the Lineup Is a Dare
How a stoner-rock blog became the heavy underground's most trusted curator
Festivals
Smukfest: Denmark's Beautiful Festival in the Beech Woods
How a one-day gig under a tarpaulin became a forest city of 60,000
Festivals
Rock am Ring: A Racetrack, a Storm, and the German Masses
Forty years of rock on a Formula One circuit in the Eifel hills
Festivals
Desertfest: The Fuzz-Rock Church of the Riff
How a Camden weekend became the stoner-doom underground's spiritual home
Festivals
Resurrection Fest: A Galician Village That Becomes Metal's Capital
How a small hardcore scene turned a fishing town in northern Spain into one of Europe's biggest metal festivals
Festivals
Midgardsblot: Metal Among the Burial Mounds
A Viking and atmospheric-metal festival staged on the largest burial-mound site in northern Europe
Festivals
Wacken: How a Village of 1,800 Hosts 85,000 Metalheads
A farming hamlet in Schleswig-Holstein becomes the loudest town in Germany for one week a year
Festivals
Roskilde 2023: Back to Full Strength
The year the orange canopy stopped apologising for the pandemic and simply ran at full size again
Festivals
Nummirock: Midsummer Metal in a Finnish Forest
The festival that trades juhannus bonfires for double kick drums
Festivals
Copenhell 2023: The Old Gods Return
The year Refshaleøen's metal harbour handed its main stage to the heritage-rock carousel
Festivals
Northside, Aarhus: The Hometown Festival
Three days of indie, pop and pointed organic idealism in my own back yard
Festivals
Roadburn 2023: Back in Tilburg, Six Years On
A curator-less edition finds Deafheaven playing Sunbather whole and Cave In back on the main stage
Festivals
Beyond the Gates: Bergen, Black Metal's Home Ground
A curated extreme-metal festival in the rainy west-coast city where the sound was recorded
Festivals
Inferno: Oslo's Easter Weekend in the Dark
How a black-metal festival colonised the Easter holiday in the city that birthed the genre
Festivals
Tons of Rock: How Oslo Learned to Throw a Proper Metal Party
From a Halden fortress to Norway's biggest festival on the Ekeberg plateau above the fjord
Festivals
Summer Breeze: Germany's Well-Oiled Metal Machine
How a medieval Bavarian town became one of Europe's most efficient metal festivals
Festivals
Damnation Festival: Britain's Indoor Extreme-Metal Day
How a message-board dare became the best-run extreme-metal day in the UK
Festivals
Tuska: Helsinki's Midsummer Metal Ritual
How the most metal nation on earth throws a party in a former power plant
Festivals
Brutal Assault 2022: Metal in a Fortress
Deep in a Czech baroque fortress, extreme metal takes over the tunnels, ramparts and moats of Josefov
Festivals
Copenhell 2022: The Return
Two silent summers ended on a Copenhagen shipyard, and the noise came back all at once
Festivals
Bloodstock: The Fan-Built Festival That Refused to Sell Out
How a fantasy painter's family built Britain's biggest independent metal festival
Festivals
Download: The Spiritual Home of British Metal at Donington
How a motor-racing circuit became the sacred ground of UK rock, twice
Festivals
Graspop Metal Meeting: Belgium's Cathedral of the Loud
How a Sunday family gig in a Kempen village grew into a four-day metal city
Festivals
The Two Years Hell Stood Empty: Copenhell 2020–2021
Two cancelled Junes, a silent shipyard, and what happens to a scene when the noise just stops
Festivals
Wacken 2019: The Rain Year
The 30th-anniversary edition turns the fields to soup, and Slayer say goodbye in the wet
Festivals
Roskilde 2019: The Last Summer Before the Silence
The Cure, Bob Dylan, Cardi B and Travis Scott — the final normal Roskilde before two years of nothing
Festivals
Copenhell 2019: The Last One Before the Silence
Slipknot, Tool and Scorpions on the tenth edition — the last full Copenhell before two summers vanished
Festivals
Copenhell 2018: Long Days on the Harbour
Ozzy on his farewell lap, a stacked undercard, and a festival growing into its own crowd
Festivals
Sweden Rock 2018: My One Year in the Sölvesborg Forest
Iron Maiden, Ozzy, Judas Priest and a Helloween reunion in a Blekinge pine forest — the heritage-metal pilgrimage across the bridge
Festivals
Roskilde 2017: The Year the Mud Won
Foo Fighters and Arcade Fire on the Orange Stage, a campsite turned to soup, and the Orange Feeling holding on anyway
Festivals
Copenhell 2017: The One That Got Serious
System of a Down back on a stage, Prophets of Rage dragging politics onto the shipyard, and a festival that had clearly decided it was a big deal now
Festivals
Roadburn 2017: The Doom Pilgrimage, First Steps
A first descent into Tilburg, where Baroness curated, Coven crossed the Atlantic, and My Dying Bride played the album whole
Festivals
Wacken 2016: First Time in the Holy Mud
A Copenhagen punter finally makes the pilgrimage south, and watches Iron Maiden close a world tour in a cow field
Festivals
Copenhell 2016: Refshaleøen Settles In
Black Sabbath came to the shipyard on their farewell tour, King Diamond came home, and the festival stopped feeling like a scrappy upstart
Festivals
Roskilde 2015: Orange Feeling in the Rain
McCartney closed it, Muse and Kendrick carried it, and the rain never quite managed to spoil it
Festivals
Copenhell 2015: The Year I Finally Went
Four years in Copenhagen before I walked onto the shipyard, and Slipknot closing the harbour made me feel like an idiot for waiting