For awhile, there’s been speculation over the fate of next years’ UK leg of the Sonisphere Festival. Having cancelled in 2012 due to poor ticket sales (and what many deemed was an unfavourable lineup being the cause), it seemed as recently as a couple of weeks ago that Sonisphere was going to return to Knebworth as Kililive (Sonisphere’s promoters) director Stuart Galbraith had suggested the festivals’ return was going to happen at the UK festival awards.
Unfortunately, the following announcement was made on the Sonisphere Facebook page at around 12:00pm today:
The three Sonisphere Festivals to date at Knebworth in 2009/2010/2011 set a very high standard and indeed 2011 was voted the best festival line up by The UK Festival Awards.
We think it is really important that the event only runs when it has a line up that sets it apart from the competition whilst also carrying a ticket price that allows us to offer real value for money to the music fans. We were hoping to do that in 2013 but unfortunately it wasn’t possible to fulfil both aims with the principle problem of there being a lack of available headliners of the calibre of previous festivals at Knebworth. We made offers to over a dozen major artists but for various reasons none of these offers lead to securing a strong bill.
The good news is that the Sonispheres in Amneville, France and Milan, Italy are already on sale and UK fans who fancy jumping on a budget airline and seeing the mighty Iron Maiden at Sonisphere festivals in sunnier climates can buy tickets via www.Sonispherefestivals.com in pounds sterling.
Watch out for more Sonsiphere European news to be announced early 2013.
Team Sonisphere
The only upswing to this is that they did say they were already working on 2014 – but then that is what they said this year about 2013 when 2012 was cancelled. It is very interesting to see the Sonisphere team highlight the lack of available headliners as the primary cause of the cancellation of the festival, as the “same bands headlining festivals over and over” has become an increasingly relevant topic of discussion over the last couple of years.
Everyone at Rocksins hopes that Sonisphere returns in 2014 with a lineup that the organisers and fans alike can be happy with and proud of, a feeling that we’re sure the rest of the UK rock & metal community will also be feeling. Any further updates on the European editions of Sonisphere, along with continued coverage of the UK’s festivals such as Download and Bloodstock can continue to be found here at Rocksins.com.
