Never say. Adagio is known, but perhaps Ben Barbaud did not take into account during the press conference that closed the 2017 edition of The Hellfest. “They asked me if Muse, Foo Fighters or Coldplay were going to come. We will never go so far,” promised the head of Extreme Music Festival.
Since eight years have passed, Foo Fighters has walked one of Hellfest’s scenes in 2022 and Muse’s Pop Rock will be heard in one of the main scenes of the festival this Friday, June 20 for the 18th edition of the event, which will take place until Sunday in the presence of 60,000 people every day.
By bringing Matthew Bellamy and his teammates to come, Ben Barbaud suspected that he was going to make the teeth shrug in part of Hellfest’s metal and historical.
“With age too, I have matured, I am less sectarian,” he explained in December 2024 in an interview with El Parisino. “I created this festival for love of punk, hardcore and at first for purists. But today, I prefer to surprise them to always rebuild the artists themselves.”
“Tourists fed up”
In the comments of the Facebook publication that announces the future sale of the 4 -day pass for the 2026 edition, some shared their disappointment when they saw the “Hell Festival” losing in their sense a bit of their soul while they were based on the “main current”. “Without me. Next year after eleven years of Hellfest we will go to other festivals to find Real Metalleux. Found by tourists,” Jimmy Tactó. “For the first time it will be without me. This year’s schedule disliked,” another scathing.
Volunteer for six editions and having not lost a single hell since 2010, Kévin Bouvron, 35 years old and living in the Nantes region, could see in the first accommodation the evolution of the festival, either because of its programming or decoration “Hell has taken in Disneyland Tunes for a long time,” he summarizes.
“The organization offers much more accessible groups and people arrive at Hellfest when they reach the Charrues old men. There is no need to listen to all metal day to really appreciate their stay. It really makes you think of a coachella in a little darker and with less brightness and stars.”
Distant seems, in fact, the moment when Hellfest, who awakens curiosity and mockery, was perceived simply as “a meeting of strange people who listen to metals and black dresses,” reminds Corentin Charbonnier, anthropologist and author in 2015 of the thesis of the thesis of the thesis The Metal Community: Hellfest as a place of pilgrimage.
From pelrinage place to the main door
According to him, after ten years of existence marked by his sustainability and development by depending on fans of the early hour, the festival remained until 2018 an event for a “metal audience.” A change in the public took place as of 2019, with the increasingly important influx of the new festival attendees.
“Now there are four different public profiles in Hellfest. We will have purists, on the one hand, that have passion for metal and those returning from year to year because they are fans of the festival,” says Corentin Charbonnier.
“Then we find two other types of audiences: the followers, who follow their spouse or their friend to go to hell. And finally we have 25% of those attending the festival who come to the festival when it is their only practice in relation to the metal of the whole year.”
From a pilgrimage place to the metal community, the festival has become an entrance door to this environment, a crossroads where the postponed “in black and patch jackets are rubbed shoulders with people with Quechua bags and with a white shirt,” synthesizes the anthropologist.
In addition to this coexistence between different audiences, Hellfest also saw its prices fly since it cost 189 euros for a three -day pass for the 2015 edition against 339 euros for the four -day pass ten years later. This does not prevent Hellfest 2025 from flowing in less than half an hour! When sold at such a speed and with a demand much higher than the supply, the renewal of the festival attendees of the year in year is mechanical and part of the “metal growers” is inevitably next to the road.
Aging music
At the same time, Hellfest participants, in addition to being more and more graduates, received a small blow of yesteryear. Although the average age of the festival attendees was 26 years in 2011, it was about 40 years in 2022. A aging also for the best -selling names. “Going to Hellfest since 2010, I had to see some heads three or four times,” admits Kévin Bouvron. Corentin Charbonnier abounds: “The festival turned all important groups of the genre, except perhaps the system of a Down and AC/DC”.
Therefore, it is difficult for the organization to renew their big names without taking a look at other musical styles … even if that means putting together some shouts of gold in the Metalleux. The latter, without a doubt, will find more training to your taste for annexed scenes, among the more than 180 artists scheduled in the different stages of Hellfest.
It is still if it were not for those who would feel disappointed by the turn taken by hell to find their happiness a few hundred kilometers, at smaller festivals. This year, for example, they can resort to Xtreme Fest, which will take place in Cap Decouvert (TARN) from July 31 to August 2, The Tyrant Fest, organized in Oignies (Pas-de-Calais) on October 18 and 19 or the Motocultor Festival that will take place from August 14 to 17 in Carhaix, the city of Vieiles Charrues.
Source: BFM TV
