Ministry, Dimmu Borgir, Papa Roach, Gojira and More Set to Play Wacken Open Air Festival 2025

Wacken Open Air has been setting up some pretty tight bills mixing various styles of metal over the last few years, and it seems the 2025 fest will be the same. They announced the first 34 bands over the weekend and they’re fuckin awesome.

Apparently, the Wacken organizers couldn’t keep it in their pants for very long, since the announcement came mere hours after the 2024 festival ended. Like literally not even a full 24 hours later. With big af names like Ministry, Dimmu Borgir, Papa Roach, Gojira, and Obituary, it’s easy to see why.

There’s going to be what I guess you could call “special events” happening at the fest. Bands Midnight and Exhorder are playing certain albums in their entirety, while Grave Digger, Orange Goblin and Night Demon are playing their anniversary shows.

Tickets for Wacken Open Air Festival 2025 are available for preorder now, and you can purchase them here. The site’s in German, so hopefully you can read that. I’m not sure when the next round of artists will be released, but they’re probably going to be just as heavy as the ones already listed. And who knows, we’ll also probably get a peek at what the 2026 lineup will look like since Wacken can’t seem to keep any secrets.

So far, here’s who Wacken has us looking forward to:

Apocalyptica
Saxon
Within Temptation
Dimmu Borgir
Ministry
Michael Schenker playing My Years With UFO
Peyton Parrish
Beyond The Black
Clawfinger
Grave Digger doing their 45th-anniversary show
Obituary
Windrose
Brothers Of Metal
Tarja & Marko Hietala
Hanabie
Decapitated
Destruction
Celeste
Orange Goblin doing their 30th-anniversary show
Angel Witch
Dominum
Exhorder play Slaughter In The Vatican
Night Demon doing their Curse Of The Damned 10th-anniversary show
Mimi Barks
Seven Spires
Clowns
Dool
Crownshift
Midnight play Complete & Total Hell