Quotes to take away from the Sonisphere press conference

The people behind Sonisphere held a press conference today... here's what you need to know.

“There are few better ways to celebrate 40 years of rock at Knebworth than what we’re doing today. Having Metallica and Iron Maiden on the same bill - what a great way to celebrate our 40th anniversary.”

“With so many faceless venues what’s fun about Knebworth is to have this beautiful park and this beautiful old house. In a hundred years they’re going to be talking about this period at Knebworth house and how these were the classic rock years.”

On Soni’s hiatus

“The last two years were costly and terrible.”

“We took a deliberate decision in 2013 not to run because we couldn’t put together a bill we were comfortable with and that was good enough.”

On having the responsibility of pushing new bands and festival headliners

“We gave Rammstein their first headline show and Billy Clyro.”

“We’ve broken ground with Babymetal.”

On expanding the festival

“It’s not going to become a 100,000 capacity festival. It can’t, we don’t have the space. And there comes a point where from a practical point of view that you get a scale where you can’t continue to deliver quality of customer service.”

On next year’s headliners and line-up

“We’ve thought about it a great deal. It won’t be Adam Lambert.”

“We’re working hard and will hopefully be making announcements as soon as we can.”

Luke Morton joined Metal Hammer as Online Editor in 2014, having previously worked as News Editor at popular (but now sadly defunct) alternative lifestyle magazine, Front. As well as helming the Metal Hammer website for the four years that followed, Luke also helped relaunch the Metal Hammer podcast in early 2018, producing, scripting and presenting the relaunched show during its early days. He also wrote regular features for the magazine, including a 2018 cover feature for his very favourite band in the world, Slipknot, discussing their turbulent 2008 album, All Hope Is Gone.