Metal fans will have to wait another year for the return of the Rockstar Energy Drink Mayhem Festival. The touring summer festival announced its decision Sunday (5/10) to postpone it’s 2020 comeback until 2021.
The announcement was made via a post on the festival’s Instagram, sharing a photo from the Rocky franchise with the caption: “as we’re sure you’ve guessed.. due to the pandemic we have to sit this summer out, but 2021 we plan on being back in full swing.”
Mayhem Festival was started by Kevin Lyman (Warped Tour) and John Reese in 2008 as a metal equivalent to Lyman’s Warped Tour. The tour has hosted a range of well-known and up-and-coming metal bands, including Slipknot, Slayer, Korn, Avenged Sevenfold, Rob Zombie, Motörhead, Megadeth, Disturbed, Lamb of God and Marilyn Manson, among many others. It ran through the 2015 season, which was plagued by low attendance and heated tensions between the tour and headliner Slayer.
The festival’s return was announced in November 2019. In the festival’s first Instagram post in over two years, they wrote “Don’t call it a comeback,” also paired with a photo from the ‘Rocky’ franchiste. That post was followed a month later with one on Facebook saying “Merry Christmas Mayhem Fam. See you next Summer.”
