The number 23 is to be found everywhere! Take a close look; not only is it the holy number of Discordianism, a song from Behemoth's album Thelema.6 and The Big Lebowski's favourite (and only) bowling lane, it is also the number of editions the Wacken Open Air has under its belt. And to celebrate this synchronicity the world's biggest metal festival has invited a whole slew of big names of the scene: legendary German hard rockers Scorpions will play their very last gig under German sky at the W:O:A 2012! Some go, others return: seminal industrial metal band Ministry just couldn't go cold turkey and are back to play a Best Of show with a side dish of their most recent output Relapse. Swedish power metal band HammerFall will celebrate their 15th Wacken anniversary - having played this festival for the first time in 1997 - with a special show, and so will heavy metallers U.D.O., whose eponymous frontman turned 60 earlier this year.

Other bands on the bill have already announced to bring some friends and special guests. Norwegian epic black metallers Dimmu Borgir, for instance, bring along an entire string orchestra. Moonspell are rather modest, bringing along "only" four cellists, three background vocalists and a percussionst for their acoustic show dubbed "Sombra". A special show has also been announced by Circle II Circle who will be joined by Chris Caffery to play the Savatage album The Wake of Magellan in its entirety. And while Amon Amarth will have to watch in awe as their neighbours Leaves' Eyes sail on stage with a Viking ship, Brazilian thrashers Sepultura will remind you of modern days again with their special guests, the industrial drumming ensemble Les Tambours du Bronx.

Don't care for either of these bands? Well, how about Opeth, Saxon, Volbeat, Machine Head, Cradle Of Filth, In Flames or one of the other 100+ bands then? Just scroll down for a complete listing of all the bands.

Wacken Open Air takes place in - surprise! - Wacken in Northern Germany, a small village with merely 2,000 inhabitants on 361 days of the year. The town is located 10 km north of Itzehoe and 50 km northwest of Hamburg. There will be shuttle buses from the festival site to the train station in Itzehoe as well as to the airports in Berlin, Hamburg, Bremen and Lübeck. For more info on getting there and away check the festival page here.

The festival is officially sold out since November already, but some tour operators (e.g. Metal Train for Germany, Bock Tours for the Netherlands, Germany, Austria and Switzerland, Argon Events for the UK) still have some coach trip/festival ticket packages in store. More tour operators can be found here.

Another way to acquire your ticket would be the ticket exchange in the official forum which aims for eliminating the black marketing going on on eBay and other auctioning sites, and reducing the risk of acquiring fake tickets. 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 English) and here (in German).

Further readings:
Wacken 2011 ? Wacken 2010 ? Metal Train 2010 ? Wacken 2009 ? Wacken 2008 ? Wacken 2007