Ozzfest

Ozzfest is an annual festival tour of the United States (and in some years, Europe) featuring performances by many heavy metal and hard rock musical groups. It was founded by Ozzy Osbourne^[1] and his wife Sharon Osbourne,^[2] both of who also organize each yearly tour with their son Jack Osbourne.^[3] The Ozzfest tour has featured bands of a variety of genres within heavy metal and hard rock, including alternative metal, thrash metal, industrial metal, metalcore, hardcore punk, nu metal, death metal, gothic metal and black metal. Ozzy Osbourne and Black Sabbath have played the tour several times over the years.^[1]

History

Ozzfest concert poster on an empty storefront door in downtown Prague, Czech Republic (Summer 2002).

1996-1998: Early years

The festival was created in 1996 by Ozzy Osbourne's wife and manager, Sharon Osbourne, when organizers of musical festival Lollapalooza refused to let Ozzy Osbourne join the tour. ^[4] The tour was well-received, which prompted the festival to become a yearly occurrence.^[1]

The first Ozzfest was not a national tour, but rather a two-day festival held in Phoenix, Arizona and Devore, California on October 25 and 26th, 1996 respectively.

In 1998, Ozzfest ventured outside the United States for the first time into the United Kingdom, which featured a different lineup of bands. The festival would eventually return to the UK in 2001^[5] and 2002.^[6]

2000-2006: Commercial success

In the early 2000s, artists and bands including Pantera, Rob Zombie, Marilyn Manson, Mudvayne, Slipknot, Incubus, Linkin Park,^[7] System of a Down, and Disturbed played the yearly music festival.^[7][8] Two compilation albums of the Ozzfest tour were released, one covering select 2001^[7] performances and another for 2002.^[9]

On-stage footage of the Ozzfest 2004 tour was shown on MTV, as Ozzy and Sharon hosted a show on the network titled Battle for Ozzfest where they chose eight out of hundreds of bands to compete for a spot on the following year's Ozzfest. Ozzy selected one member from each chosen band to "tag along" on the tour. Each contestant had to complete numerous challenges in order to improve his/her band's chances of winning the contest. Occasionally, meetings would be held and certain contestants would be eliminated for various reasons. The person who prevailed as the winner and guaranteed his band's spot on the Ozzfest tour was Marc Serrano from metalcore act A Dozen Furies.^[10]

At Iron Maiden's last Ozzfest performance, on August 20, 2005 at the Hyundai Pavilion at Glen Helen in San Bernardino, California, several negative events took place. During the first song, several members of the crowd, brought on by Sharon Osbourne, bombarded the British metal band Iron Maiden with eggs, bottle caps and ice. During three of Iron Maiden's songs, the P.A. system was switched off, cutting power to vocalist Bruce Dickinson's microphone and then to all the band's instruments. During the concert, Bruce Dickinson can be heard accusing the festival's organizers of deliberately cutting off the band's power. On Iron Maiden’s departure, Sharon Osbourne came on stage to make a few statements, telling the audience that she "absolutely loved Iron Maiden" but thought that the lead singer Bruce Dickinson is a prick." ^[11] Rod Smallwood, manager for Iron Maiden, issued a statement shortly after the debacle condemning the attack on the band.^[12]

2007-2008

On February 7, 2007, it was announced that tickets to Ozzfest 2007 would be offered free of charge, dubbing the 2007 Ozzfest as "free fest."^[13] Tickets were made available through sponsor websites, the Ozzfest web site and to those buying an advance copy of Ozzy Osbourne's new release, Black Rain.

Sponsorship money provided the revenue for the tour, but organizers did not pay any of the bands appearing. Ozzy Osbourne returned to the headlining slot on the tour after being absent from the 2006 tour. Ozzfest 2007 featured well-established acts such as Lamb of God, Static X, and Hatebreed.

There were problems with distribution of the free tickets. Fans were given codes to receive tickets through the official Ozzfest website, but due to the heavy load on Live Nation's secure servers, there were issues with ticket redemption. Another problem was that many "eBay scalpers" charged fans to pay for the free tickets, often turning out to be unusable duplicates of other tickets.^[14] Then, on July 26, Ozzfest gave away free tickets without requiring its "redemption code" previously required.^[15]

At the August 16, 2007 show in Holmdel, New Jersey at the PNC Bank Arts Center, controversy was generated as 83 attendees were arrested at the show, most of them underage and arrested prior to 8:00. In addition, two men died, one after overdosing on alcohol and energy drinks. As of August 18, drinking in the parking lot was banned at the PNC Bank Arts Center. 

Questions over whether the event would be held in 2008 began when in April that year Ozzy Osbourne announced that he would be headlining the Canadian Monsters of Rock festival.^[16] The 2008 version of the festival took place for only one date at Pizza Hut Park in Frisco, Texas on August 8, 2008. The line-up featured Metallica and Ozzy Osbourne as the headliner bands, as well as other acts such as Jonathan Davis (frontman of Korn), Sevendust, DevilDriver, Serj Tankian (frontman of System of a Down), Cavalera Conspiracy, Shadows Fall, Apocalyptica and In This Moment.^[17][18] Along with the two main stages was a third, named the Texas Stage, which, according to Sharon Osbourne, featured such Texas-based bands as The Sword, Drowning Pool, Goatwhore, Soilent Green and Rigor Mortis.^[19][20]

The Canadian Version of "The Monsters of Rock" was held exclusively on July 26th, 2008 at the McMahon Stadium located in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. It was also scheduled as a "one time only" event. The main attraction for the festival of heavy metal and mayhem were metal giants Judas Priest and the headliner, Ozzy Osbourne. In addition, various other "big league" heavy metal outfits attended the festivities. The following bands preceded the two main attractions: Serj Tankian, Hatebreed, Cavalera Conspiracy (featuring current frontman of Soulfly, Max Cavalera) Shadows Fall, Canadian Metal unit Voivod, Testament, 3 inches of blood, Priestess, Zimmers Hole, and Dillinger Escape Plan.

2010^[21]

• Main Stage

Ozzy Osbourne, Mötley Crüe, Rob Halford, DevilDriver, Nonpoint, Exodus

• Second Stage

Black Label Society, Drowning Pool, Kingdom of Sorrow, Goatwhore, Skeletonwitch, Saviours, Kataklysm

Tour Dates

Sat, Aug 14 - San Bernardino, CA - San Manuel Amphitheater

Tue, Aug 17 - Chicago, IL - First Midwest Bank Amp.

Thurs, Aug 19 - Pittsburgh, PA - First Niagara Pavilion

Sat , Aug 21 - Hartford, CT - Comcast Theater

Sun, Aug 22 - Camden, NJ - Susquehanna

Tue, Aug 24 - Mansfield, MA - Comcast Center

Sat, Sep 18 - London, UK - O2 Arena*

Tue, Sep 28 - Tel Aviv, Israel - Hayarkon Park (Line-up to be announced)

* Although this date is provided as an official date of the Ozzfest tour by its official website, it has a very different artist line-up. These artists include: Ozzy Osbourne, Korn, Murderdolls, and Skindred.

Most appearances at Ozzfest

• Ozzy Osbourne (9)
• Black Label Society (7)
• Hatebreed (6)
• Black Sabbath (5)
• DevilDriver (4)
• Drowning Pool (4)
• Disturbed (4)
• System of a Down (4)
• Coal Chamber (3)
• Fear Factory (3)
• Marilyn Manson (3)
• Nonpoint (3)
• Otep (3)
• Rob Zombie (3)
• Shadows Fall (3)
• Slayer (3)
• Slipknot (3)
• Static-X (3)

See also

• Ozzfest lineups by year

References

External links

• Ozzfest 2008 info
• Official website
• Ozzfest '98 Tour diary, photos and interviews
• Ozzfest News Coverage - 2 New Jersey Deaths at Ozzfest 2007
• Ozzfest 2008 - Metallica on Board