The Wacken Open Air 2010 has just closed its gates, but the first bands for the 22nd edition of the world's biggest metal festival have been announced already:

Tobias Sammet's Avantasia will perform their only festival show in 2011 at Wacken Open Air. Just like in 2008 Avantasia will once again gather a whole lot of great names of the rock and metal scene on stage.
Apocalyptica are the second band confirmed. After performing a 45 minutes surprise set at this year's edition they will deliver a full show in 2011 again.
Also Blind Guardian are confirmed for Wacken Open Air 2011, which will be the band's only show on German soil next year.
Last, but not least, American crossover heroes Suicidal Tendencies will be playing at Wacken for the very first time.




In earlier news Canadian death metal battalion Kataklysm, who had to cancel their appearance at this year's edition, have already been booked for the 2011 edition as well:
"Unfortunately [...] we just cant make the trip to Wacken this year, [but] the organizers have been kind enough to rebook us for next Wacken 2011... of course if the world still exists, so we apologize to all you maniacs that wanted to see us destroy Wacken this year... you'll have to wait next year!"
The same might apply to Primal Fear who also had to cancel their attendance at this year's edition and have been proffered to make up for it in 2011.

The presale of the W:O:A X-Mas-Package will start on Monday, 9th August 2010 at 00:01 a.m. CET. The package, which was sold out in merely 10 hours in 2009, contains a 3 day ticket, a t-shirt and a Nuclear Blast sampler and is limited to 10.000 tickets. It is sold exclusively at http://www.metaltix.com/. Regular tickets can be purchased at a later point.

Source:	metaltix.com
Event:	Wacken Open Air 2011