The Wacken Open Air festival in 2018 was held from 2 to 4 August in the traditional place - the town of Wacken in 100 km from Hamburg and thundered in the whole district 29-times. This year, the festival featured Nightwish, In Flames, Gojira, Dimmu Borger, Samael, Epica and many other famous artists of the metal scene. Once again, we came here to see the biggest festival of heavy music and want to talk about it.

Stages

At the festival of nine scenes:

The two main scenes that used to be called Black Stage and True Metal stage, and have now become FASTER and HARDER, joined into one, separated by a flaming bull skull, they work in turns, but the Party Stagenow is LOUDER and located to the right of the main scenes

Headbangers stage and W:E:T stage is located in the structure called the Circus in Waken Plaza:

Wackinger Stage is in the area Wackinger Village

The Village Of Wacken

The village of Wacken is a small town in Germany, an hour's drive from Hamburg, which once a year becomes the epicenter of heavy music, and the festival area in the city of installations. Weather was a pleasant surprise, because in the previous year was rainy and cold, and the summer 2018 was hot, and all days of the festival was the temperature above 30 degrees, so this year we happily rejected has become so familiar rubber boots and enjoyed the sunshine.

Road to Wacken

From Hamburg

The nearest international airport is in Hamburg, 50 miles outside of Wacken.

From Berlin

Also from Russia it is more profitable to fly to Berlin and from there by bus to get to Hamburg (one of the most famous carriers of Europe is Flixbus), but try to lay more time on trains in Hamburg, as the buses tend to be late.

From there through a system of ground station (S-Bahn) you need to get to the Central station of Hamburg (Hamburg HBF), then go to the train station and buy tickets to Itzehoe (the nearest town to Wacken, and can be reached via railway). Ticket price - from 13 to 20 Euro (depending on the level of the train). Shuttles from itzehoe to Wacken. The fare is 10 euros and ride it as many times.

Tickets for S-Bahn are sold in DB machines, which can be easily found at the station, but these machines accept either coins or banknotes of 5 and 10 euros. So prepare a trifle in advance or use the card. Controllers do not so often appear in trains, but if you are not lucky, the fine for ticketless travel is 60 euros. Machines switch to several languages, including English. In order to buy any ticket you have to click in the Destination point (destination) of Itzehoe and the scoreboard lights up the timetables. Choose the right time for you and pay the fare. The platform number is displayed in about half an hour before the train on a large scoreboard hanging in the hall. But here be careful: standing on the platform follow the labels because the platform on which arrives the necessary for you train can change. If you do not understand what is written on the Board, ask the station worker – there goes a lot. But if you observant person, you'll probably see a few people (or even companies) in the t-shirts at Wacken. You can just run after them (they are clearly heading in Itzehoe) or even ask them to help to find the train.

At the entrance a huge placard with the writing of scenes, camping and location

Stores and merch

In the tent of merch, you can buy anything from spiked bras to scarves. The festival and the town itself is a brisk trade of sunglasses, products for piercing, hats, t-shirts groups, baby clothes (bodysuit, t-shirts, baseball caps) bracelets, dresses....

In terms of selling merchandise there are on the festival site and in the village:

Keep in mind that you have to stand in line. It is advisable to purchase necessary things with attributes of festival in the beginning, otherwise you risk to run into a sold out position.

In addition to the official store you can go to Outlet Store and buy last year's t-shirt with 50% discount

You could also go to Bazaar and buy Souvenirs from vinyl records to clothing for children

Food

The main food on festviale Europe is fast food- sandwiches, sausages, country-style potatoes and French fries. But the number of tents is quite impressive and you can eat noodles and rice, seafood, fresh meat, you can also enjoy Breakfast coffee, tea or juice with muffins in General, to enumerate all menu Wacken impossible.

Vegetarians will rejoice in the tents with food for those who do not consume animal food,

Drink:

The system has not changed and drinks at the festival, you can only carry in special containers or by the glass that you had to take it back and get the Deposit, as well as beer, which you can buy in a bottle or in a separate plastic Cup, with a cost of beverage container Deposit for 1 Euro. That is, drinking, drink, you can take a bottle or a glass and get 1 Euro back for each unit of packaging.

As for the variety of drink, in the first place, of course, beer. You can also find cider, energy cocktails, gusarovka and Jagermeister.

Entertainment

In addition to the cool quality music on Wacken you can include the following: throwing axes, archery, crossbow, kilometer, learning the basics of the art of fire show and the magic staircase, which is almost impossible to climb:

The atmosphere

The atmosphere of the festival is constructed from people who a year ago bought the tickets and waited for the moment when they will be back on the "Holy land." In the camps thousands of people meet, be friends, change contacts, share all kinds of interesting stories, help each other and just have fun.

To view photos from the hottest metal festival you can at the link.