Gojira, Machine Head, Papa Roach, Within Temptation and many more for Wacken Open Air Festival 2025

(Image credit: Wacken Festival)

As the 2024 edition of Germany's Wacken Open Air festival draws to a close, organisers have already announced a raft of names for the 2025 event.

The names announced today include French metal titans Gojira – fresh from their triumph at the opening ceremony of this year's Paris Olympics – plus Papa Roach, Machine Head, Saltatio Mortis, Apocalyptica, Saxon, Within Temptation, Dimmu Borgir, Ministry, Michael Schenker (My years with UFO), Peyton Parrish, Beyond The Black, Clawfinger, Grave Digger (45th Anniversary Show), August Burns Red, Obituary, Wind Rose, Brothers Of Metal, Tarja & Marko Hietala, Hanabie, Decapitated, Destruction, Celeste, Orange Goblin, Angel Witch, Dominum, Exhorder, Night Demon, Mimi Barks, Seven Spires, Clowns, Dool, Crownshift and Midnight.

The ticket presale begins today at 8pm from metaltix.com and wacken.com German time (7pm UK time), with tickets remaining the same price as those for this year's event.

The 85,0000 tickets for Wacken 2024 were sold out in less than five hours, for a weekend that included sets from Korn, Amon Amarth, Scorpions, Architects, Opeth, Cradle Of Filth, In Extremo, Suzi Quatro, Blind Guardian and many more.

This year fans were able to take advantage of a new system that allowed them to camp at the site from the Sunday prior to the official start of the festival.

"Our new access pass system was extremely well received by the fans," says Wacken promoter Holger Hübner. "Not least because of this, there were no traffic jams on arrival! We will build on this next year."

"We can't stress it enough," says organiser Thomas Jensen. "We have the best fans in the world! All the better that we were able to experience a sun-kissed W:O:A with them this year with countless great concerts. For us, it was an all-round successful celebration of the global metal family, which we naturally want to surpass next year."

The 34th Wacken Open Air Festival will take place July 30 - August 2, 2025, in the village of Wacken in Schleswig-Holstein, Germany.

Wacken Festival 20215 poster — (Image credit: Wacken Festival)

Artists

Online Editor at Louder/Classic Rock magazine since 2014. 40 years in music industry, online for 27. Also bylines for: Metal Hammer, Prog Magazine, The Word Magazine, The Guardian, The New Statesman, Saga, Music365. Former Head of Music at Xfm Radio, A&R at Fiction Records, early blogger, ex-roadie, published author. Once appeared in a Cure video dressed as a cowboy, and thinks any situation can be improved by the introduction of cats. Favourite Serbian trumpeter: Dejan Petrović.