UK Sonisphere cancels again

Another UK festival has announced it is cancelling its 2013 edition and will not return until 2014. Metal fest Sonisphere - which cancelled in 2012 - was expected to return in 2013 and at the recent UK Festivals Conference, the boss of the festival's promotor, Kilimajaro Live's Stuart Galbraith, said plans were well underway for Sonisphere UK to return next summer, calling the 2012 cancellation a "hiccup" .

Sonisphere UK cancelled

The British leg of Sonisphere is off, with the news broken yesterday by headliners Queen, who told their fans "it is with very heavy hearts and much regret that we announce the cancellation of Sonisphere Knebworth 2012". The cancellation was confirmed by promoters Kilimanjaro who said "Putting the festival together in what is proving to be a very challenging year was more difficult than we anticipated and we have spent the last few months fighting hard to keep Sonisphere in the calendar. Unfortunately circumstances have dictated that we would be unable to run the festival to a standard that both the artists and Sonisphere's audience would rightly expect". Ticket holders will automatically receive a full refund direct from their ticket agents". Rumours of the cancellation began to circulate in the agent community earlier this week and some are said to be very disappointed with the cancellation after agreeing exclusive UK terms with Kilimanjaro. The Darkness, Faith No More and Kiss were also confirmed as headliners, but rumours persisted of poor ticket sales.

Slipnot in the slipstream

Slipknot have announced that they will stream their headline set at Sonisphere UK this weekend live via their official website Slipknot1.com and the website of the festival. The set will be the band's first in the UK since the death of bassist Paul Gray last year. It's also the first time a set at the festival has been streamed live on the net.