The Sonisphere Festival will not return to the UK for the second year running, less than a month after organisers confirmed it would definitely be back in 2013.
Organisers shared the news via a statement on Facebook overnight, claiming “a lack of available headliners” as the main reason behind scrapping the UK leg for 2013.
The three Sonisphere Festivals to date at Knebworth in 2009/2010/2011 set a very high standard and indeed 2011 was voted the best festival line up by The UK Festival Awards.
We think it is really important that the event only runs when it has a line up that sets it apart from the competition whilst also carrying a ticket price that allows us to offer real value for money to the music fans.
We were hoping to do that in 2013 but unfortunately it wasn’t possible to fulfil both aims with the principle problem of there being a lack of available headliners of the calibre of previous festivals at Knebworth. We made offers to over a dozen major artists but for various reasons none of these offers lead to securing a strong bill.
According to the BBC, “work has already started on Sonisphere UK 2014” – however, one would imagine only the mother of all festival lineups would get Sonisphere back on the radar in the UK festival market, if it ever does return.
Sonisphere France and Italy will still go ahead on the weekend of June 8 and 9 – with Iron Maiden headlining both events. More Sonisphere European news is expected in early 2013.
