2023-08-04 07:00:00
Sunshine at the metal festival: Significantly less mud increases the party fun of the heavy metal community in Wacken. The festival was even close to being canceled at first.
Significantly better weather made it easier for tens of thousands of metal fans to party at the Heavy Metal Festival in Wacken on Friday. The ground conditions on the site have improved significantly compared to the previous days due to more sunshine. “Now the operational situation is very relaxed and we had a quiet night,” said police spokeswoman Astrid Heidorn on Friday. There are fewer missions than 2022.
From Thursday to Friday, the officials registered, among other things, six thefts of mobile phones and wallets and five injuries. Three people had narcotics with them, two rioted and five needed help.
After a chaotic start with a stop to arrival and ultimately even a stop to admission, the festival turned out to be larger than expected this summer. 61,000 people are on the site, said festival co-founder Thomas Jensen. The police had previously reported an estimated 50,000 people on Thursday.
Heavy rain had turned the festival and camping site in Wacken into a mud desert.
According to Jensen, the Wacken Open Air (W:O:A), which started with a lot of rain and a lot of mud, was almost canceled. “But at the time the admission was stopped, there were already over 40,000 guests on the camping ground and an estimated 20,000 more in the surrounding area on the streets, camping privately or standing on the side of the road in the constant rain, so that a cancellation with the departure of these guests was closely coordinated with the authorities, wasn’t an option in the end,” Jensen said.
Wacken boss Jensen: Festival was about to be canceled
On Wednesday, the organizers imposed an admission freeze for safety reasons. Originally they had expected 85,000 visitors, the festival was officially sold out. With a ticket price of 300 euros, the reimbursement costs are high. “The economic situation cannot be finally assessed at the moment,” said Jensen.
On Friday afternoon the weather in Wacken, Schleswig-Holstein, got noticeably better after a mixed morning. Fans drank beer again, partly on dry ground. Metal fans could be seen crowd surfing in front of the stage. They let the crowd carry them over the heads of the people.
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In the evening there were musical highlights for many fans in Wacken. First the US band Megadeth and shortly afterwards the British group Iron Maiden around their frontman Bruce Dickinson wanted to heat up the tens of thousands of metalheads on the two main stages.
The festival is scheduled to end on Sunday night. The last of around 200 originally planned concerts on nine stages should be played around 2 a.m. (dpa)
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