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After a nearly decade-long hiatus, Sharon Osbourne says Ozzfest is “absolutely” on the cards for next year. Black Sabbath frontman Ozzy Osbourne gave her his blessing before his death in July last year, to continue the event in his memory.
“Do you think Ozzfest would work without me?”
“Yeah, we’re gonna do it,” Osbourne said last month during a conversation at MIDEM 2026 in Cannes, France. “The last time was in 2018. It was exactly a month before Ozzy got sick, and that was at the forum in LA. There were no plans to stop. We wanted to keep going, but Ozzy couldn’t. Ozzy and I kept talking about it, and he asked, ‘Do you think Ozzfest would work without me?’
And I said, ‘Yeah, it’s a brand. It works without you.’ And he said, ‘Then we should do it.'”
Bigger, wider, louder
Osbourne plans to expand Ozzfest – which ran from 1996 to 2018 – into an even larger production and take the festival on the road as a tour. The revival is expected to stay true to the roots of the original, with heavy metal and hard rock acts at the front of the lineup, but may also include other genres.
It’s been almost ten years since the last Ozzfest – so it’s time for a comeback
The last Ozzfest took place in 2018 at the Forum in Los Angeles, with performances by Ozzy, Rob Zombie, Jonathan Davis and Marilyn Manson. Even before his death from cardiac arrest and coronary heart disease on July 22, 2025, Ozzy was able to give his fans a bittersweet farewell: with the “Back to the Beginning” show with members of Black Sabbath at Villa Park in Birmingham, his hometown.
