The long-running but troubled metal festival Metal Days in Slovenia has gone dark for 2024 and will not host another festival ever again under this name. Originally emerging in 2024 as Metal Camp, the festival was renamed Metal Days from 2013- 2022. After holding a truncated festival in 2023, citing catastrophic flooding canceling the last day, and blaming this years’ cancelation on fallout from the ill will of cheated fans, from the global pandemic, economic crisis, and business mistakes. They had promised to refund tickets for several past festivals, but in a lengthy farewell statement only available on their website, they blamed another company for withholding refunds. Metal Days also faced local competition from Tolminator, a smaller yet still successful festival in Tolmin, the original location of Metal Days until 2023. The statement also claimed that they “reinvested the profits from MetalDays into our other festivals: Winter Days of Metal, Headbanger’s Holiday, Bluesland, Overjam Reggae (2017-2019), and Punk Rock Holiday (2013-2016)” – all leading to losses weighing on the parent festival. The statement also states they tried to sell the festival in order to save it for fans to The statement includes details of the festival organizers’ attempts to sell the brand to major festival companies that included Live Nation, Superstruct, and Festival Republic, but failed. Further complicating things, Metal Days has wiped its socials except for YouTube, where they notoriously used to delete negative fan comments, which is a bad look considering the money owed fans, and gaslighting those fans about the whereabouts of that money. Thousands of bands played the festival, including past headliners for the event include: Amon Amarth, Anthrax, As I Lay Dying, At the Gates, Benediction, Beyond Creation, Cattle Decapitation, Clutch, Cradle of Filth, Messhuggah, and many more. At its best, it was a perfect combo of the great traditions of European-style open-air extreme metal music festivals, metalhead culture, camping, lakefront beach fun, and romping in the great outdoors in gorgeous Slovenia. We will keep tracking this story to see if fans ever get refunded, or if the promoters ever try to return. Read the full farewell statement below.   Continue reading →