Bad news for metal fans today: the UK edition of Sonisphere festival at Knebworth will not go ahead this year. Sonisphere’s organisers made the announcement on its official website late on Friday (January 16th).

One of the reasons given was that there had been a struggle to put together a “good enough” line-up, though The Prodigy, Metallica and Iron Maiden had all been announced as headliners for the July 4th-6th event. Furthermore, in the increasingly crowded festival fixture list, it’s been difficult to find a weekend that doesn’t clash with other events.

Iron Maiden
Iron Maiden had been one of the confirmed headliners for Sonisphere 2015

In the statement, the organisers said "Team Sonisphere reluctantly confirm that Sonisphere will not take place in the UK in 2015. We've been working hard to get a line-up that we felt was good enough but also on a weekend which would avoid other events that we know rock fans would want to support. Unfortunately our last irons in the fire have just been extinguished and it's clear that we won’t be in a position to run the event this year.”

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“We've said in the past that Sonisphere will only go ahead if we feel it is going to be good enough and that hasn't changed. We hope all rock fans have a great summer with all the festivals and concerts already in the calendar and we plan to see you all in 2016."

Sonisphere is an exclusively hard rock and metal festival, which first took place in 2009 at Knebworth House in Hertfordshire. The brand has subsequently spread throughout Europe, with big name acts such as Metallica, Iron Maiden, Slayer and Megadeath headlining the various festivals.

But in the recent past, the UK branch of the festival has to cancel on a couple of occasions, with the plug being pulled in both 2012 and 2013 after similar problems. Meanwhile, the Swiss edition is still planning on going ahead, with Muse scheduled to appear on June 6th.

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