Multi-Genre Festivals Are Giving Heavier Acts A Chance (Like BRING ME THE HORIZON) – Why?

There's an obvious answer to the question of 'Why are more multi-genre festivals booking heavier acts like Bring Me The Horizon?' which is – because metal is becoming more popular. Sabaton ran a study and found rock and metal to be in the top 5 most searched for genres in the UK; Deftones, Sleep Token, and Ghost all broke Billboard 200 records last year with their releases; mainstream artists like Megan Thee Stallion are collaborating with metal artists and bringing them on stage at Coachella… believe it or not, metal and rock are indeed becoming popular again.

There are any number of reasons as to why someone might turn to rock or metal music. Whether it was something they grew up with, found, were shown; whether it was a channel for anger, sadness, or angst; whether it was able to articulate something external or internal – any one reason might attract someone to our scene. And our scene is getting bigger – just ask the multi-genre festivals across Europe such as Electric Castle in Transylvania, Romania or Sziget Festival in Budapest, Hungary.

Márk Bóna, a booker with Sziget Festival, explains that there is a visible resurgence in heavy music and a desire from the audience to hear more of it: "We are always listening to our audience, and lately we do see heavier music becoming more popular again, especially among younger fans. We adapt the programme accordingly, and I think many major festivals are experiencing a similar shift." And Sziget is not the first multi-genre festival to book Bring Me The Horizon – Electric Castle did two years ago. Reading & Leeds – a festival who has a history of supporting the alternative scene, but has switched courses in the last decade or so – hosted them in 2025 as well. The band is incredibly accessible, despite their heavier sound. From immersive live experiences to incredible sound engineering, there's nothing not good about a Bring Me The Horizon show. Except, maybe the crowd. My mate had to start one of the pits in Electric Castle in 2024.

But, at the end of the day, booking heavier artists for festivals now is ultimately connecting to a scene with strong roots that existed twenty years ago – many of these festivals hosted metal and rock acts in the 90s and 2000s: "There has always been space for heavier music at Sziget," Bóna explains, "From the very beginning we had a strong presence of metal and punk fans, and we booked acts specifically for that audience. For many years we even had a dedicated metal stage where a lot of Hungarian punk, metal and metalcore bands performed. 

"That was also a different time: Sziget started in 1993, and both the audience and the wider music scene have evolved since then," Bóna continues, "At some point the movement around those genres changed and the audience became smaller, so the dedicated stage gradually disappeared. At the same time, rock and metal has always been present on our bigger stages as well. In 2005 we even had a dedicated Rock Main Stage featuring bands like Deftones and Motörhead."

Other festivals are following Sziget's early lead. Slam Dunk in the UK just introduced two 'heavy' stages this year that feature only heavier artists such as Heriot, Cancer Bats, Static Dress, Saosin, Currents, Bury Tomorrow (who are doing a massive European festival run this summer, holy shit), and Knocked Loose. But, it isn't always necessarily about creating sectioned-off spaces for those who wish to enjoy metal and rock – in Slam Dunk's case, as a smaller independent festival, it works – but in other cases, it can be for everyone.

Having previously featured Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, and Foo Fighters in the Hungarian festival, and Bring Me The Horizon, YUNGBLUD, Queens Of The Stone Age, Bad Nerves, The Sisters Of Mercy, Palaye Royale, and more at the Transylvanian destination on their biggest stages, there's a certain balancing of younger rock acts and older, established groups whose name is known around the world. And sometimes festivals only rely on their previous history with metal and rock to draw forth a crowd for a handful of alternative bands; other times, festivals gather that it's about having older or bigger names, yes. However, that leaves behind the newer bands who have been making headlines and draw in a completely different crowd of its own. So, we're a lot more likely to see festivals capitalising on metal and rock's uptick in popularity, but it'll be easy to tell which multi-genre festivals are doing it for the money, and which ones are doing it out of love for the genre: "We have metalcore bands ANNISOKAY and AVRALIZE from Germany, Baby Lasagna from Croatia, LEAP and Lambrini Girls from the UK, HEALTH from the US, John Coffey from the Netherlands and Kim Dracula from Australia."

So, will we see more and more multi-genre festivals adding heavier artists to their line-up over the next year or two? Oh, you betcha.