Wacken Open Air ‘overwhelmed’ by 2025 ticket sales

Organisers of legendary German heavy metal festival Wacken Open Air (W:O:A) say they are “overwhelmed” that next year’s edition is already close to a sellout.

Machine Head, Saltatio Mortis, Papa Roach, Gojira, Apocalyptica, Saxon, Within Temptation, Dimmu Borgir, Ministry, Michael Schenker, Peyton Parrish, Beyond The Black and Clawfinger have been confirmed for the 85,000-cap event, set for 30 July to 2 August 2025.

The first batch of 10,000 “Faster” tickets, which included a limited edition T-shirt, swiftly sold out, while all but a few of the remaining “Harder” tickets, priced €333, have also now been snapped up.

“We are overwhelmed that the 85,000 tickets for W:O:A 2025 are almost completely sold after such a short time,” co-founder and promoter Thomas Jensen tells IQ. “We do not take the metalheads’ trust for granted. On the contrary, our motivation is to organise the best possible metal festival – not to be able to announce a ‘sold out’ as quickly as possible.”

The 2024 festival, which took place last week in Wacken, Schleswig-Holstein, was headlined by Scorpions, Korn, Amon Amarth and Blind Guardian.

“We are very happy and thankful,” says Jensen. “It was a fantastic get together of the international metal community – our family, having a great time, amazing concerts and a very peaceful week with loads of new metal memories.”

“Fans could experience a whole week of W:O:A for the very first time”

He continues: “At the moment we are overjoyed that we can look back on a great week and are already counting down the days until we can meet fans, friends and family on the Holy Ground again next year – for that we are giving everything.”

It marked a return to full-strength for the Superstruct-backed, International Concert Service (ICS)-promoted metal institution, which went ahead at reduced capacity last year after the site was hit by rain and thunderstorms in the days leading up to it, leaving the camping areas “impassable”.

In an effort to help avoid similar scenes this time around, W:O:A introduced an extra arrival day and new arrival system with access passes for cars. For the first time, a limited number of access passes, priced €66.60 per vehicle, were made available for the Sunday before the festival – meaning areas of the campsite were open for a whole week.

“The fans fully accepted it, so everything went very smoothly and they were able to access the festival site without any delays and traffic jams,” reports Jensen. “Who doesn’t love having more time for a cold beer? It was a successful decision and implementation. Fans could experience a whole week of W:O:A for the very first time.

“In addition to arriving earlier, there were some special treats for them, like a very well received DJ set by my co-founder Holger Hübner aka ‘DJ Hüby’ and bands from the 1990 edition playing at the Landgasthof, where the idea of Wacken Open Air was originally born.”

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