This Sunday, June 22, the 18th edition of The Hellfest ended. This 2025 edition, which welcomed more than 240,000 spectators in four days, was remarkably marked by the presence of Muse at the head of the poster, a choice criticized by a part of the metal audience, seeing the sign of an excessive opening of the festival to the general public.
Questioned by Le Parisien a few hours before the closure of Hellfest, the director of the festival, Ben Barbaud, spoke about this controversy. The one who trusted in 2017 that “I would never go” to schedule more pop-rock artists such as Muse, Foo Fighters or Coldplay, he says today “he did not regret having called the Matthew Bellamy group this year.
“They played in front of a crazy world, equivalent to Metallica. As what is necessary to separate the opinions we read on social networks and those of the festival attendees,” says Ben Barbaud.
“That said, Muse will not be taken often here, because it is not the most unifying group for our audience,” said the director.
“Muse’s presence was an opportunity”
Already in 2024, the announcement of the presence of Foo Fighters in the Hellfest scene had caused many criticisms between the habitual metalmen and customers, some fearing that the famous festival loses his soul by becoming too the mainstream. But that the purists of the genre calm down themselves, “the Hellfest will continue to be what has always been” according to Ben Barbaud.
“The presence of muse in the head was an opportunity. If there are two or three groups outside every year, we do not mean that we change the general mental state of the other 180,” said Hellfest’s director.
In spite of everything, the 2025 edition of the festival was a great success with 60,000 festival attendees per day in the case of an event in Clisson. “We are not aware of any serious act and any assault. We are between 30 and 35 % of women in the festival, three times more than at the beginning. It is a signal that is a safe festival,” rejoice to Ben Barbaud that confesses to having “signed many artists” for Hellfest 2026.
Source: BFM TV
