Hellfest is a music festival held in Clisson, France since 2006. The band selection includes mainly music from the hard rock, metal and punk/hardcore genres.
History of the festival
From 2000, the CLS Crew from the hardcore punk scene organized concerts in Clisson. Since these small events met with sufficient interest, the members decided to venture into organizing a festival. In June 2002, Furyfest was held for the first time, offering bands like Agnostic Front to 400 visitors. Due to the success of this sold-out festival and the positive reactions, work was done to enlarge it.
In 2003, Furyfest had to be moved to the Trocardière in neighboring Nantes for scheduling reasons. The two-day event presented Sick of It All, Youth of Today, Gojira, Entombed and The Exploited and already attracted 7000 visitors. As the organizational work was no longer manageable for the CLS crew, Ben Barbaud, one of the organizers, decided to make the festival his profession and founded MAN.IN.FEST. In 2004, Furyfest moved to Le Mans. Bands like Slipknot, Morbid Angel, Meshuggah, Fear Factory, Soulfly, Hatebreed, Deicide and Testament played in front of 21,000 festival-goers. However, there were first serious problems, as costs and effort were too high. In 2005, a new promoter took over the event with Barbaud as the band organizer. Again in Le Mans, the festival featured bands such as Slayer, Motörhead, Jello Biafra with The Melvins, Anthrax, Dimmu Borgir, In Flames, Pennywise and The Misfits on three stages. Despite 30,000 visitors, the event resulted in a financial loss. Furyfest was discontinued.
Meanwhile, in Clisson, the place of origin, some former organizers and sponsors tried to set up a new festival – the birth of Hellfest, which was held for the first time from June 23 to 25, 2006. Despite fears beforehand and protests from the community, the festival became a success; 22,000 people attended. The line-up featured Motörhead, Apocalyptica, Dead Kennedys, Soulfly, Stone Sour, Helloween, Saxon and Cradle of Filth, among others.
While 40,000 people attended the festival in 2007, the 7th edition attracted around 115,000 people in three days in 2012. In 2020, the festival was canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic that was rampant that year.