France, Clisson - Hellfest Open Air 2015

Hell yeah! Great line-up but I can't go.
It's GMM @ the same date, so hopefully a lot of these bands can do both fests.

Sold out. Wasn't expecting it to go so fast, if compared to last year (but they did reduce the numbers).

Bet they will sell more tickets in some weeks/months due to "popular demand".

Written by Vombatus on 08.12.2014 at 13:13

Sold out. Wasn't expecting it to go so fast, if compared to last year (but they did reduce the numbers).

Bet they will sell more tickets in some weeks/months due to "popular demand".

Jesus.

Written by Vombatus on 08.12.2014 at 13:13

Sold out. Wasn't expecting it to go so fast,

At least with Hellfest almost the entire line-up is known, whereas with Wacken only a small handful of bands have been announced and it's already sold out for months now.

Written by Marcel Hubregtse on 08.12.2014 at 13:54

At least with Hellfest almost the entire line-up is known, whereas with Wacken only a small handful of bands have been announced and it's already sold out for months now.

Yep, indeed. But Hellfest is much more recent and don't have the "mystic aura" of the so called "Mecca of Metal" that Wacken has. That's why I find really impressive to sell out in 20 days.
Although I could see HF becoming a Wacken v2.0 (last year was already similar...) if the organizers want it, and certainly gained a huge of amount of notoriety in the last 2-3 years.

Written by Vombatus on 08.12.2014 at 17:09

Written by Marcel Hubregtse on 08.12.2014 at 13:54

At least with Hellfest almost the entire line-up is known, whereas with Wacken only a small handful of bands have been announced and it's already sold out for months now.

Yep, indeed. But Hellfest is much more recent and don't have the "mystic aura" of the so called "Mecca of Metal" that Wacken has. That's why I find really impressive to sell out in 20 days.
Although I could see HF becoming a Wacken v2.0 (last year was already similar...) if the organizers want it, and certainly gained a huge of amount of notoriety in the last 2-3 years.

I guess they could, but a lot of HF goers certainly don't want "their" fest to get any bigger... If Hellfest does that, they'll lose part of their audience (who will go to smaller fests in France like Motocultor, X-Treme fest, Sylak or Fall Of Summer) and gain a more mainstream one

Written by Darkside Momo on 08.12.2014 at 18:25


I guess they could, but a lot of HF goers certainly don't want "their" fest to get any bigger... If Hellfest does that, they'll lose part of their audience (who will go to smaller fests in France like Motocultor, X-Treme fest, Sylak or Fall Of Summer) and gain a more mainstream one

I know loads of non-French visitors who will skip Hellfest if it gets any bigger and will go to smaller fests in Germany and Eastern Europe.
I for one already found it to be too big for the area it was hosted on in 2010 and never returned to Hellfest. Okay 2011 was due to my mother passing away and her funeral being in the Hellfest weekend. But I am sure that would have been the last time given the fact they were expanding the amount of people attending and the number of stages. Sorry, but six is really way too many stages.

Written by Marcel Hubregtse on 08.12.2014 at 18:39

Written by Darkside Momo on 08.12.2014 at 18:25


I guess they could, but a lot of HF goers certainly don't want "their" fest to get any bigger... If Hellfest does that, they'll lose part of their audience (who will go to smaller fests in France like Motocultor, X-Treme fest, Sylak or Fall Of Summer) and gain a more mainstream one

I know loads of non-French visitors who will skip Hellfest if it gets any bigger and will go to smaller fests in Germany and Eastern Europe.
I for one already found it to be too big for the area it was hosted on in 2010 and never returned to Hellfest. Okay 2011 was due to my mother passing away and her funeral being in the Hellfest weekend. But I am sure that would have been the last time given the fact they were expanding the amount of people attending and the number of stages. Sorry, but six is really way too many stages.

Six stages I find manageable - barely. Any more grow will be too much for me too Last year there were too many people on the site, so I think this edition will be a bit more confortable in that regard

Written by Darkside Momo on 08.12.2014 at 19:50

Written by Marcel Hubregtse on 08.12.2014 at 18:39

I know loads of non-French visitors who will skip Hellfest if it gets any bigger and will go to smaller fests in Germany and Eastern Europe.
I for one already found it to be too big for the area it was hosted on in 2010 and never returned to Hellfest. Okay 2011 was due to my mother passing away and her funeral being in the Hellfest weekend. But I am sure that would have been the last time given the fact they were expanding the amount of people attending and the number of stages. Sorry, but six is really way too many stages.

Six stages I find manageable - barely. Any more grow will be too much for me too Last year there were too many people on the site, so I think this edition will be a bit more confortable in that regard

6 stages is very manageable considering it is devided by genres and you only have 2 or sometimes 3 playing at the same time. For me some recurring problems that never get fixed (sound on stages, festsite configuration,etc...) were getting quite annoying, and especially the size ! 2012 was a very good balance with the new site (that is twice as big as the previous), and even if they are reducing this year compared to 2014 I think it will still be quite crowded. Smaller fests is the way to go, for me of course

At Hellfest 2014 is was actually pretty cool chilling at the Extreme Metal tent at the Death and Black metal stages. I barely left there, and when i did, it was only to see a really big name i feel i couldn't miss.

I did feel though it was way too many people. I'd probably aim for a smaller festival next time. It's all about the experience though. That's Wacken and Hellfest done. I'd ideally like to go to a Doom Metal Festival or something but it's so hard to sync up travel and festivals.

It's definitely a decent lineup for 2015 though!

Awesome line-up, but this fest is too big for me now. I've been there for 5 years, but 2014 was a too crowded one... Waiting for everything, and far from every stages if you didn't go early. Not my stuff anymore! But it's a really good one, if you are not scared about floods of people it's ok!

So in a nutshell, the good parts:
- excellent weather, very hot but quite stable (except the cold night at the camping)
- you could bring in water bottles with caps (I suppose this was OK because of the heat)
- grass everywhere, so Clisson was not covered in dust and we could sit anywhere
- the Altar and Temple are now two separate scenes, still connected
- the Altar, Temple and Valley scenes all had a big screen displaying either the band currently playing or announcing the next band
- a very diverse crowd, all generations of rock/metal lovers could be found
- no more HellStairs to reach the camping (see our 2014 report)
- toilets were rather clean
- few last minute changes/cancellations
- the cashless card (that you can reuse for future editions), no more tokens
- collective showers with no queue, if you don't care about intimacy
- even better decorations, and that 10th anniversary fireworks was crazy good
- Blizzard went overboard with their own decoration: animated pre-show for bands announcements on the MainStages, a tavern where you could play HearthStone (and a bit of WOW) while listening to Charlie Parra whom they invited to play some WOW tunes, a hammer contest, the train from Clisson to Nantes entirely decorated, etc.
- I was guided to a parking in no time on my arrival on Thursday
- the Woodbrass stand in Hell City Square, you could test Gibson guitars equipped with autotuning systems
- all the bands I saw performed admirably

And the bad parts (although "bad" is too big a word for many of these issues):
- it still feels like there are too many people
- not much space to watch the shows on the screens of the Altar/Temple/Valley
- no screen for the Warzone scene
- access to the Warzone was still problematic when big bands were playing (Bodycount)
- when a band played under the Altar, if you stood to the right side you could hear the band playing under the Valley at the same time
- the sound blacked out on the MainStage 1 four times (Airbourne, Scorpions, Cavalera Conspiracy, Korn)
- the RFID chip on the festival wristbands felt a bit useless, not sure it really saved some queuing time
- the part with the least grass was... the forgotten small "wood" (aka the former best place to rest)
- "compost toilets" in the camping. I don't mind the concept, but you really had to seat on a hole in a plank of wood to take a shit
- queuing for official Hellfest merch was tough, and some items were sold out after the first day (including discounted 2016 tickets)
- it could take more than 1h to get to the individual shower cabinets on Saturday and Sunday
- fashion trends bent towards mullet/undercut hair and hipster beards
- the skate park looked good but I found it useless, a waste of space
- It took me like 3 hours to get my car out of the parking, on Monday morning. Nobody was there to control the traffic
- the Marshall stand in Hell City Square, with terribly overpriced t-shirts and earphones. Better buy cheap fakes if you only fancy wearing that Marshall logo.

I'm still undecided about going there next year, because I realized I wasn't interested in seeing bands play live anymore. I took more pleasure in enjoying the evolution of the festival; I like what they choose to do to answer the constraints/complaints they received and the new ideas they bring every year. Though maybe I don't need to attend the whole 3 days to witness that.

I may write more (do you want to read more?) but in the meantime you should see the official picture gallery (here) and the videos of some of the shows (here)

Written by wrathchild on 24.06.2015 at 01:36

I may write more (do you want to read more?)

I do.
Didi they announce any name for 2016?

Written by Darkside Momo on 24.06.2015 at 03:27

I do.
Didi they announce any name for 2016?

No they didn't.

Written by wrathchild on 24.06.2015 at 09:01

Written by Darkside Momo on 24.06.2015 at 03:27

I do.
Didi they announce any name for 2016?

No they didn't.

guessed as much, but wanted to be sure