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Wacken weather 2025: rain, mud and strong acts
In 2025, the weather at Wacken Open Air shows again from its extreme side. For many regular guests, rain and mud have long been standard. Some jokes that they had already acquired their “free swimmer badge” at the chaos year 2023. But mud puddles with a depth of ten to 20 centimeters are a challenge even for experienced festival goals. The heavy rain in particular during the appearance of Saltatio Mortis on Wednesday evening (July 30) literally brought down some fans.
According to the German Weather Service, around 40 liters of rain per square meter. This is about as much as usually falls in two average July weeks. Wacken co-founder Thomas Jensen spoke in view of the situation of a “critical load limit”. For Holger Hübner, co -founder of the festival, it was “luck in misfortune” that the announced storm only hit the terrain on the edge. Meteorologists predict further rain for the coming days.
Organizers react with measures against the mud
In view of the heavy rains and the difficult conditions on site, the organizers have taken extensive measures in order to continue to maintain the festival site and to contain the extent of the sludge formation. Instead of the originally planned 800 cubic meters, around 3,000 cubic meters of wood chips were distributed on particularly muddy areas. Arrival with your own car remains severely restricted. Visitors are asked to switch to public transport. Shuttle buses regularly commute from the train station in Itzehoe directly to the festival site.
Despite the weather: top-class line-up delights the fans
Since 1990 the Wacken Open Air (W: O: A) has been taking place in the municipality of Wacken in Schleswig-Holstein at the beginning of August and is now one of the most important heavy metal festivals worldwide. The line-up is also top-class in 2025: for the first time, Guns N ‘Roses appear on the W: O: A. Bands such as Gojira, Papa Roach, Machine Head and Michael Schenker with his band are also on stage. The 85,000 tickets have been sold out since autumn 2024 – the festival was completely occupied in September.