Last day of METALDAYS FESTIVAL canceled after torrential rain
Eye witness Tony Dolan (Venom Inc) reflects
09-05-2023
The last day of this year’s MetalDays festival, which is being held annually in Slovenia, has been canceled due to heavy rains and floods in the area.
Last Friday (August 4),the MetalDays organizers issued the following statement: “The authorities have declared a state of emergency, indicating a serious situation that requires immediate action.
“The last day of the festival is canceled, and no shows will happen due to the current situation.
“It’s advised not to attempt to leave Velenje, as all streets are closed for safety reasons.”
In an exclusive statement, Tony “Demolition Man” Dolan, of frontman of VENOM INC., who were among the very last bands to play before the festival got halted, says:
“We recently played Metal Days festival in Slovenia and I’m not sure if we instigated it but as we began our Mainstage set the skies darkened and a storm began… growing more intense as we performed… luckily for us we completed our set however the storm had grown so large they closed the stages and we’re forced to cancel band following!
According to Reuters, Slovenia’s Environment Agency has issued a red warning against large-scale flooding. Meteorologists say the heavy rains will last for the next 24 hours at least.
Slovenian police told the official STA news agency that three people have died since bad weather started on Thursday.
Launched in 2013, MetalDays annually hosts over 12,000 metalheads from more than 70 different countries. MetalDays is one of the central metal events in this part of Europe, attracting a massive international audience of thousands of fans from Scandinavia, Germany, Austria, France, Spain the Mediterranean countries, and Slovenia. Its program represents a wide variety of genres and sub-genres of metal with the addition of hardcore-influenced styles in the whole week gathering of bands performing on five festival stages.
Earlier this week, the organizers of Germany’s Wacken Open Air festival stopped admissions to the event after heavy rain turned the grounds to mud.
Although a sellout crowd of 85,000 was originally expected at festival, which started on Wednesday (August 2), only an estimated 50,000 people made it to the site, according to the German news agency DPA.
On August 2, the MetalDays organizers said that they would “extend a helping hand to those affected by extreme weather conditions” at Wacken by “open(ing their) gates to accommodate stranded Wacken visitors.” They wrote: “As a symbol of friendship and support, we offer free tickets to (500 additional) Wacken visitors on a first-come, first-served basis.”
MetalDays Slovenia has set July 28 to August 3 as the dates for 2024. Emperor, Blind Guardian and Cattle Decapitation are among the first confirmed acts. Early bird tickets are available AT THIS LOCATION.
