Ozzfest confirms a US edition of the metal festival for 2027

Ozzfest is coming back to the United States in 2027. The metal festival confirmed it on Monday through its own social accounts, posting a graphic reading that Ozzfest will come to the UK and US with a caption asking fans where they want the American edition to land. Metal Injection and Consequence both report the confirmation, and both note that no city, venue, date or band has been named.

The UK half was settled in August: Villa Park in Birmingham, the home ground of the late Ozzy Osbourne, in the city where Black Sabbath started. The accounts of that event differ slightly between outlets, with Metal Injection describing a two-day festival in Birmingham while Consequence reports Jack Osbourne having said each edition would be a single day, in the shape of last year's Back to the Beginning concert. Nothing in Monday's post resolves it.

Sharon Osbourne has been trailing an American date since the start of the year, and she has ruled one thing out. Next year's edition will not travel, though she has left the door open to Ozzfest returning to a touring format in 2028 or later. That is a meaningful limit on a festival whose reputation was built on a summer amphitheatre run rather than a single field.

The point she keeps returning to is the lineup, and it is a pointed one for a legacy festival. Speaking with her son Jack on The Osbournes Podcast, she said they need young, new talent, "because that's what your dad would want", and asked listeners to say where in America the festival should go. She has also named Rob Halford of Judas Priest as someone she would like on the bill, with nothing confirmed.

Ozzfest started 30 years ago as a travelling North American festival and did as much as any single event to break System of a Down, Disturbed and a long list of bands that followed them onto radio. It ran across Arizona and Texas, into Canada, Japan and the UK, and only settled into southern California towards the end. Its last outing was a one-day event in Inglewood on 31 December 2018, which makes 2027 the first stateside edition in close to a decade.

The promise of new bands is the part worth watching, because it is the part that costs a legacy festival money. A 2027 bill weighted towards acts nobody has heard of is a different proposition from a reunion show, and the Osbourne family has committed to it out loud before announcing a venue. Our festival tracker carries the dates as they are confirmed, and the metal hub has the rest.

The return has been assembled in public over several months, from Sharon Osbourne first saying the 2027 festival was under discussion to the Villa Park announcement in August. A planned Ozzy Osbourne film is moving along a parallel track, with Jack Osbourne saying it will be made for fans rather than as an art house biopic.