Ozzfest confirms its 2027 return to the metal festival's spiritual home

Ozzfest confirmed its 2027 return in a post on the festival's official Instagram account on Monday, August 17, showing an aerial shot of Villa Park in Birmingham, England, with the words "Ozzfest to return in 2027 at Villa Park" over the image. Organizers gave no specific dates, promising only that "more info on everything" is "coming soon."

The choice of venue carries obvious weight. Villa Park is the stadium in Ozzy Osbourne's hometown of Birmingham where he and Black Sabbath played their final live performance, the Back to the Beginning concert, in the summer of 2025, weeks before Osbourne's death at age 76 on July 22 of that year. Birmingham has since held its own tribute, Ozzy Day, an annual free event of art installations, street performances and music marking his legacy in the city where his father worked in a metal factory. Speaking to NME in 2025 ahead of that final Villa Park show, Sharon Osbourne said Birmingham had "done so much and is such a huge part of who [Black Sabbath] are," adding, "Sabbath have always been Birmingham born-and-bred. This is the home of metal and this is where it started."

Sharon Osbourne had already all but confirmed the return over the past few months, telling her son Jack on their podcast that she hoped to eventually bring Ozzfest to the United States as well, though no American dates have been announced. More recently she suggested the 2027 edition could span two nights in Birmingham, "up for the fans to tell me," and said of the lineup, "Of course we're speaking to people. I can't let that out yet, but it'll be soon."

She's also floated the idea of an AI-generated avatar of her late husband appearing at the 2027 edition, a project built with the tech companies Hyperreal and Proto Hologram that would let fans interact with the avatar in real time. She has pushed back on criticism that the plan amounts to cashing in on his image, saying Ozzy loved the idea and that the family had been discussing it for a decade before his death. Sharon had teased the festival's return as still under discussion just two weeks earlier.

Ozzfest, one of the metal world's signature package tours since it first ran in 1996, held its most recent edition in Inglewood, California, on New Year's Eve 2018, with a bill that included Rob Zombie, Marilyn Manson and DevilDriver alongside Osbourne himself. With the venue now locked in, fans are left waiting on dates and a lineup, which Sharon Osbourne has said organizers are already working on behind the scenes.