20 years! 20 fucking years! That's how long the Wacken Open Air exists already. And it has come a long way from a garden party with 800 guests and 6 bands to the biggest metal festival in the world with more than 75,000 visitors and close to 70 bands performing on four stages. Said stages have seen performances by nearly every important band in the world of metal as well as numerous underground acts, so expectations are quite high for this year's lineup. Already confirmed are several fan favorites from the previous editions, such as Saxon, Motörhead, Machine Head, In Flames and Doro who has announced a special Warlock show. Further highlights are the two hour farewell show of metal veterans Running Wild, who will show the young lads how pirate metal is really done, and the performance of recently reunited viking metal legends Einherjer. And as always the lineup will please metalheads of every age: the older folks will be delighted by the confirmations of Heaven And Hell and UFO while Bullet For My Valentine, Walls Of Jericho and Bring Me The Horizon represent the newest generation of metal(-related) music.

The namesake and host of the festival is the small town of Wacken in Northern Germany. For just short of a week the town's population skyrockets from a mere 2,000 souls and turns the village into the world's metal mecca. The town is located 10 km north of Itzehoe and 50 km north/west of Hamburg. There will be shuttle buses from the festival site to the train station in Itzehoe as well as to the airports in both Hamburg and Lübeck. For more info on getting there and away check the festival page here.

The festival is sold out since December already. If you haven't got your ticket yet, but want to go there nonetheless, you can circumvent the black marketing going on eBay and reduce the risk of acquiring fake tickets by using the ticket exchange in the official forum. In this exchange the Wacken staff supervises the ticket prices and acts as trust which means that the seller sends the ticket(s) to the staff who verifies the authenticity of the ticket(s) and reports it to the buyer. After the buyer has transferred the money to the seller, the Wacken staff will pass on the ticket(s) to the buyer. More information on this model can be found here (in German).