Here we go again! WACKEN – Rain or Shine!

After the Rain-edition of Wacken Open Air in 2015 we are ready for another Shine-edition of the biggest metalfestival in Europe. The little village of Wacken will get rid of their massive amount of cows in a few weeks, to replace them with an entirely different breed: 80 000 metalheads! The festival area of 220ha should suffice to house this great amount of headbangers, and the 40km of fences should keep them safe inside. But even outside of the festival area there’s a lot to see in Wacken! The town’s people really live up to being a heavy metal town and build bars and food stalls all along the main street. From young to very old; they keep on raising their horns!

Who are the lucky ones with a ticket for this Sold-Out festival and will party with us from 03/08 until 06/08 in Wacken, Germany?

There were no tickets left? You can still read our adventures at Wacken in our review after the festival.

Still got a desire to go to Wacken soon? Get behind your computer to await the start of the ticketsale for Wacken 2017 on Sunday the 7th of August to be sure!

RUNNING ORDER

But first the 2016-edition! Which bands are playing?

Click the Running Order image to check it out, or make your personal running order with the Running Order Tool.

Like every year we already start the party at Wednesday (03/08), with several bands who won the Wacken Metal Battle in their own country. Then we can get the medieval and folk party going at our favorite place in Wacken: the Wackinger Village, including the Wackinger Stage. Here we can enjoy several awesome folkbands, like Pampatut, Versengold, Mr. Hurley und die Pulveraffen, Vogelfrey, Red Hot Chili Pipers and Eric Fish and Friends. One short visit at the Beer Garden Stage for Blechblosn and then off to the Bullhead City Circus for: Henry Rollins – Spoken Word and the Belgian band Bliksem!

Starting Thursday the Mainstages are added to the available festival area. We can start the day and visit the True Metal Stage & Black Stage, but first we will support our own Carrion, winner of the Metal Battle Belgium at 11u00 the Headbangers Stage. Be sure to be there and support!

But then we’re off to the Mainstages for: Saxon, Foreigner, Whitesnake, Iron Maiden and a tribute to Lemmy with Lemmy – Born To Lose, Live To Win at the Black Stage. To compliment this we can enjoy some black and death metal in the Bullhead City Circus: Vader, Tsjuder, Marduk and for something completely different: Blue Öyster Cult.

Then Friday it’s full speed ahead with a full line-up at the Mainstages and the Party-Stage that joins in, with Equilibrium for example. At the Mainstages we can enjoy Hämatom, Legion Of The Damned, Loudness, Entombed A.D., Eluveitie, Blind Guardian, Ministry and Testament. The Bullhead City Circus again gives us some variety of subgenres with Girlschool, Alcest, 1349, Ihsahn and Kampfar.

On Saturday we still can’t get some rest, because we will start our day with Myrkur at the Headbangers Stage and then a busy day will follow until the Outro of the festival. With at the mainstages: Borknagar, Therion, Steel Panther, Twisted Sister and Dio Disciples feat. Special Guest. At the Bullhead City Circus we’ll meet Snowy Shaw, Gloryhammer and Serious Black for some last Wacken-parties. After the special show from Dio Disciples it’s time for the Outro – and the first announcements for Wacken 2017.

LOCATION

Wacken Open Air, Hauptstraße, 25596 Wacken

FESTIVAL AREA

The festival area is huge and even with this awesome map it’s hard not to get lost. We advice to take the festival map with you to ensure you’ve at least got something to go on. The infield includes the 2 Main Stages: Black Stage and True Metal Stage, and a smaller stage: Party Stage. There are a lot of bars and stalls here, and we always meet in front of the American Spirit stall (Blue Bullhead), left of the Black Stage. The infield opens on Thursday afternoon.

Before that you can already visit the Wackinger Village, Wacken Center, Beer Garden, Metal Market and Wacken Plaza. First, before the Wacken Plaza is the place where you have to check in for the first time and get your wristband (16). Then you’ll enter the Wacken Plaza via the festival entrance. Here are the Bullhead City Circus with the two smaller stages Headbangers Stage and W:E:T Stage. Next to the Wacken Plaza there’s the Wackinger Village. This is our favorite spot of the festival, with several acts, a great atmosphere, and the best (authentic) food of Wacken. This medieval village is very nice, and there’s even a mead-bar shaped like a Drakkar (viking boat), where you can buy Wacken Mead and Wacken Blut (mead with cherry). There are folk-bands walking around and performing next to the campfires, LARP, dancing and several activities like Axe throwing and Archery.

PRACTICAL INFO

– Because there’s a lot of dust when there is great weather at Wacken, it’s nice to have a dust mask to cover your face.
– When it’s hot: don’t forget to drink enough water (beer doesn’t work in the long run), use sunscreen, wear a hat and light clothing that covers your skin.
– Bring some combat- and/or rubber boots in case it’s rainy. A rain poncho is included in every Full:Metal:Bag but it may come in handy to bring your own poncho or rain coat.
– The Official Merch stands are Sold-Out soon, so it’s smart to get your Wacken T-shirt or other merch at the beginning of the festival.
– The security is very strict, and you have to pass them 3 times when you walk from the campsite to the infield. Smuggling is very hard and you need to be careful with studded wristbands and belts with spikes longer than 1cm, cartridge belts and any type of chains except wallet chains. Also you can’t bring professional camera’s, when you don’t have a press/photo pass.
– There are stands with vegetarian food.
– You get free earplugs in the Full:Metal:Bag, and you can buy better earplugs in the festival area.
– There are ATM’s at the festival area and in the village.
– Cigarettes are being sold at the festival, but only American Spirit!! For the other brands you can go to the village, but most of the time it’s very busy in the supermarket where you can buy cigarettes. So bring a stash or deal with it.

FULL:METAL:BAG

In the Full:Metal:Bag we see our beloved foldable water bottle again. Too bad we don’t see the dust-mask again, the goodie we really loved last year and that can be brilliant in case of sunny weather. The Full:Metal:Bag 2016 contains:

1. Postcard – can be send directly from the festival ground.
2. Patch – patch with W:O:A 2016 Logo.
3. Sticker – sticker with current W:O:A 2016 Logo.
4. History Pass Laminate – laminated pass with 2016 poster layout
5. Magnet – magnet with W:O:A 2016 layout (can be used on freezers for example)
6. Rain Poncho – rain protection
7. Ear Plugs – ear protection
8. Ball Pen
9. Foldable Water Bottle – (not only) for the stage areas
10. S-shaped cloth hook
11. Set of plasters (new!)
12. Backpack – Includes the Full:Metal:Bag Items and can be used as backpack during the festival ánd afterwards!

Only while stock lasts! So be sure to get your wristband on time, since you get your Full:Metal:Bag when you exchange your ticket for your wristband. Afterwards it’s not possible anymore, so ask for it in case they forget!

PAYMENTS / MONEY

There are 8 ATM/cash machines available on festival grounds. Additional ATM/ cash points can be found in the village of Wacken, Holstenniendorf, Vaale and Schenefeld. At the festival you can pay everything in cash (no festival tokens!), so be sure to bring enough with you. But it’s pretty easy to get money from the ATMs, we never waited very long when we did this. The pricing for the food and drinks is very reasonable, especially the food in the Wackinger Village when you compare it with the other festivalfood.

FOOD & DRINKS

On the festival grounds it is allowed to bring the foldable bottle from the Full Metal Bag and/ or the original Wacken cup. Beverages transported in Tetra Pack containers or Drinking horns are not allowed to be brought to the Infield. Due to the high injury risk glass bottles are strictly forbidden. Canned and/ or bottled beverages also aren’t allowed to be brought to the festival ground. You will get your drink in a Wacken cup, of which there are different designs each year, making them a popular collector’s item.

Like on every other festival, you can find a lot of different food stalls on the festival grounds. The stalls are classified by different countries, resulting in stalls like, for example, “Indian Soul Food”, Holländisch Fries (?) and many others. The countries are presented by small flags.

Luckily there’s also enough choice in drinks, as we usually grow kind of tired of Becks after we have had a few. The most well-known drink of Wacken has got to be the Wacken Met (=mead). There are 2 different kinds available, the basic Wacken Met (honey wine) and the Wacken Blut (honey wine with cherry flavour). Both of them are very delicious, but also very sweet. You can get some mead at the different mead-bars on the festival grounds, that are often made of wood and are sometimes even built in the form of a Drakker (viking ship).

Aside from the mead, you can also get the standard drinks like beer & soda, but also Monster Energy and Jägermeister. If you’d like, you could also go for a combination of both Monster Energy and Jägermeister, called the JägerMonster).

CAMPING AREA

The supermarket provides you with everything your heavy metal heart craves for. Whether meat or cocoa, canned ravioli or coffee, you find it at the supermarket. Unfortunately, advance orders are not possible. The campsite is free of charge and is right next to the festivalsite. It’s a huge campsite so we advise you to arrive early, otherwise you will have to walk (or crawl?) for a very long time. Since the campsite is so big, there is usually a lot more space between the tents, compared to for example Graspop. Fun fact: every road on the campsite has its on special metalminded street name. There’s also a possibility to rent a tent that’s already completely set up for you, via ‘Mein-Zelt-Steht-Schon’.

You can enter the campsite on Wednesday 03 August, 2016 at 0:00 am, when you present a valid ticket. It’s only after you’ve set up your tent, that you go and get your wristband and Full:Metal:Bag, right next to the Bullhead City Circus. Be sure to ask for the Full:Metal:Bag upon receiving your wristband if they forget to give you one, as you won’t be able to get one later on.

There is free drinking water available at the campsite (and in certain places on the festival grounds), but you can expect long queues! There are many food stalls, so you won’t have to starve at the Holy Wacken Land. In terms of sanitary facilities there are mainly Dixi’s on the campsite, and the showers are pretty expensive. You can pay separately every time you take a shower or purchase a pass.

You can find breakfast tents in various places on the campsite and next to supermarkets.

SANITARY FACILITIES

As said before, on the campsite the toilets are mostly Dixi’s. Luckily, there are also a couple of clean and water-flushed toilets located in the six shower camps. In the six shower camps the charge is € 0.50, on festival ground all toilets are free of charge. You can purchase WC passes at the shower camps nearby the information point. WC passes from previous years remain valid. All toilets in areas surrounding stages are free of charge.

HOT SHOWERS

Six big shower camps with lavatories are available. A service station with an information desk and supermarket is located at each shower camp. Shower passes purchased in recent years remain valid.

WATER

At the shower camps you’ll be provided with a separate drinking water supply. As usual the drinking water is free of charge. You also find additional drinking water fountains in the Infield on the left-hand and right-hand side of the stage and on the left-hand side of the Infield entry from the Wacken Center. Towards the Wacken Foundation Camp at the Wacken Center, you can find another drinking water fountain.

SAFE DEPOSIT, PHONE CHARGING

GET IN THE MOOD

IPHONE EN ANDROID APP

The popular Wacken Open Air app is once again available in 2016! The app gives you access to the latest news, the complete list of bands playing Wacken in 2016 and the running order. You can also add single bands and events to your personal favorite list to get a notification right before the band hits the stage! And if you have problems to find the right stage: A detailed map of the festival area is included too.

List of features:
News – stay informed before, whilst and after the festival
Bands – complete list of all acts
Interactive festival map with tagging function
Running Order – the running order of the festival – find out which bands play when and where!
My Festival Area – save your favorite acts and get a reminder to walk to the stages in time
Maps – detailed festival area maps
WackenTV – Videos from the holy ground
Social Media – Facebook and Twitter feeds from the festival
Photo Booth – upload your pictures to the Wacken cloud and become part of the community!

Download the app:

MORE INFO

Stay tuned for more news and don’t forget about our own official Wacken Warm-up Party on July 1st in Ghent!

If you weren’t lucky enough to get a ticket, you can check out our review and photos some time after the festival’s over.

Wacken 2016 takes place from the 3rd till 6th of August 2016 in Wacken, Germany.
For more information check out their website and facebookpage.
Join the official facebook-event.
And read our own report on last year’s edition.