Sonisphere July 31, 2009

Sonisphere is a new two-day rock festival for 60,000 held at Hertfordshire's Knebworth House on Saturday 1st and Sunday 2nd August 2009.

The event will have one main arena with a stage at either end, as well as a third stage. The headliners are Linkin Park, and Metallica, with Avenged Sevenfold, Limp Bizkit, Nine Inch Nails, Heaven And Hell, Coheed & Cambria, Anthrax, Alice in Chains, Feeder, Alien Ant Farm, Taking Back Sunday, Skindred, Thunder, The Wildhearts, Mastodon, Airbourne, Killing Joke, Soil, and Lamb Of God. Fear Factory who were previously announced have pulled out of playing at the event.

The Bohemia area houses the third stage which will be an undercover stage, running later than the other stages, offering breaking acts, some cutting edge stuff, and a few surprises like the Jagermeister Rock Karaoke, The Guitar Hero Metallica Experience, cinema, The Monster Army Camp hosting the Ball Of Steel Stunt Show by day, and DJs until the early hours in front of the watchtower, surrounded by tanks. There will also be a Silent Disco hosted by Silent Arena, and a fairground of the damned.

The festival will be run by Kilimanjaro and has been set up by Stuart Galbraith. In last year's eFestival interview with Stuart Galbraith, CEO of concert promoters Kilimanjaro. Galbraith told us, "There's one new festival, which we're looking to launch next year, which at the moment I can't tell you a lot about. It's very much in the rock vein, to enter the market place in the same area as Download."

The festival will have two outdoor stages, with 12 to 14 acts alternating between one stage and another to keep the music continuous, whilst not having two acts playing at the same time.

The festival will have camping at Knebworth with the campsite open for arrivals from 3pm on Thursday, and checkout at midday on Monday. The event will also offer festival goers a cinema, a fair, market, jugglers, and the usual festival offerings. There will also be a campsite stage with new bands and DJ sets as well. The festival does not have a strict noise curfew, and so entertainment will run until late.

The festival will also have lockers which will have car adapter style sockets in. These can be ordered alongside tickets, although there are limited numbers.

Sonisphere will also going on the road, touring Europe, visiting countries throughout Europe in the run-up to Knebworth in countries including Germany, Holland, Spain, Sweden, and Finland, and Knebworth will be the biggest, grand finale event. Metallica's involvement is part of a multi-million-pound deal that will see them play at the festival for at least three years.