2018 Will Be the Final Year for the Vans Warped Tour

It’s the end of an era! Not for me. I’ve never been to the Warped Tour. But for plenty of people, IT’S THE END OF AN ERA!!!

The organizers of the annual trek have announced that the 2018 edition will be the last one for the tour. Sadly, it will be just a year shy of being the package’s twenty-fifth anniversary, which would have made the whole affair extra-super-duper-special.

Billboard reports that festival founder Kevin Lyman is ending the long-running summer tour due to “an evolving summer festival industry, a shrinking pool of bands, and declining ticket sales amongst its teenage demographic,” as well the fact that, well, he needs a vacation:

“Before Warped I was on three years of Lollapalooza, so [it’s been] 26 straight summers out on the road. Not that I’m completely going anywhere, but traveling around the country with a tour this size in the landscape that we’re in is… to be honest, I’m just tired.”

Although Warped Tour is generally thought of as a pop-punk/emo event, it has long had metal bands on its bill. The 2017 edition, which included GWAR, Municipal Waste, Hatebreed, Candiria, The Acacia Strain, CKY, Valient Thorr, After the Burial, Carnifex, and Alestorm, was by far the most metallic bill the tour has had to date. Unfortunately, sources involved in the tour tell MetalSucks that this year’s attendance was, indeed, low. Fuck. Hope that wasn’t metal’s fault.

Lyman says he wants to “see a big mix of bands I felt really embraced the Warped Tour lifestyle” for the final one… I guess we’ll find out if any metal bands embrace the Warped Tour lifestyle or not when the bill is announced, presumably sometime in March. In the meantime, you can read Billboard‘s entire interview with Lyman here.

[via Lambgoat]