Germany’s Wacken Open Air festival has stopped admissions to the event due to heavy rain turning the grounds to mud.
The sold-out 3-day festival was expected to have 85,000 people and is scheduled to start on August 2. According to the German news agency DPA, only an estimated 50,000 people made it to the site.
Wacken organizers issued a statement about it earlier Wednesday. “Considering the weather conditions, the reasonable visitor capacity for Wacken Open Air 2023 has now been reached. Any further travel must be stopped and cancelled with immediate effect. For the first time in the history of the W:O:A this decision has been made. We are very sad, but the continuing difficult weather situation unfortunately leaves us no other choice.”
Event organizers also stated that they will attempt to move the vehicles in the immediate vicinity of the Wacken Open Air site onto the festival grounds.”We have to tow each vehicle individually to the targeted parking space with a tractor, which takes a lot of time for every single vehicle. All tractors are in continuous use day and night on all areas,” they said in a statement.
This year’s installment of the annual metal festival included performances from Iron Maiden, The Dropkick Murphys, Megadeth, Beartooth and more. It completely sold out in six hours, making it the fastest sellout in the festival’s 33-year history.
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