Ozzfest Villa Park 2027 is confirmed, with the returning festival set to take place at the same ground where Ozzy Osbourne performed his final show, according to UPI. It will be the first edition of the heavy metal festival since 2018, and Sharon Osbourne has already begun conversations with potential headliners.
The official statement promises ‘more info on everything coming soon’. Sharon, 73, told Metal Hammer last month that the event will run for one or two days, depending on fan interest. That level of planning-in-progress is as much as anyone can expect right now, but the commitment to Villa Park is real and the groundwork is clearly underway.
Why Villa Park, and why now
The choice of venue is not incidental. Ozzy Osbourne performed his retirement show, Back To The Beginning, at a sold-out Villa Park on 5 July last year. He died on 22 July, just 17 days after the gig, following a heart attack at his home in Buckinghamshire. He was 76. Returning Ozzfest to the same ground carries an obvious weight, and Sharon has been clear that the festival will carry Ozzy’s founding principles forward rather than treat itself as a nostalgia exercise.
Speaking to Billboard in January, Sharon said the relaunched festival will focus on young talent and broaden beyond its traditional rock and metal niche. ‘It was something Ozzy was very passionate about: giving young talent a stage in front of a lot of people,’ she said. ‘We really started metal festivals in this country. It was [replicated but] never done with the spirit of what ours was, because ours was a place for new talent. It was like summer camp for kids.’
That instinct to nurture newer acts has always sat at the heart of Ozzfest. Slipknot, Limp Bizkit and System Of A Down all played the festival around the release of their debut albums, back when nu metal was building its early momentum. The festival gave those bands rooms of real size before anyone was certain they would fill them.
Ozzfest Villa Park 2027 and the shadow of Back To The Beginning
The retirement show that Ozzfest will follow into Villa Park was a serious event. More than five million people worldwide live-streamed Back To The Beginning. The support lineup included Metallica, Guns N’ Roses, Tool, Gojira, Anthrax and Mastodon. Proceeds went to Cure Parkinson’s, Birmingham Children’s Hospital Charity and Acorns Children’s Hospice.
Some of the show’s moments are still being talked about. Hello Rayo reports that Jack Black performed Ozzy’s ‘Mr. Crowley’ on the screens at Back to the Beginning with a young band that included Scott Ian’s son, Revel. Elsewhere in the night, Tom Morello wore a Randy Rhoads T-shirt with ‘Sabbath Rules’ taped to the back of his guitar. These are the kinds of touches that lodge themselves in the memory of a crowd, and the kind of storytelling that Villa Park now carries into the Ozzfest announcement.
Sharon told Metal Hammer last month that a Back To The Beginning concert film will hit cinema screens later this year, which means the appetite for this world is still being actively fed before Ozzfest even releases a lineup.
Where Ozzfest began and why it stopped
The Osbournes launched Ozzfest in 1996 after Lollapalooza refused to book Ozzy. The inaugural edition was a two-day touring run with dates in Phoenix, Arizona and San Bernardino, California, with Ozzy headlining alongside Slayer, Danzig, Biohazard and Sepultura. From those roots it expanded internationally, with offshoots running in the UK, Germany, Belgium and Japan, before its final appearance as a single show in Inglewood, California in 2018.
In 2023, Sharon explained the shutdown on her family podcast The Osbournes. ‘It was a very weird beast,’ she said, ‘because all the bands were our mates, but the managers were greedy, and for some reason they thought that we were making billions on it and we weren’t. We made a profit. But it was not like, we couldn’t retire on it. And managers and agents wanted more and more and more, and it just wasn’t cost-effective anymore. We stopped because it just wasn’t cost-effective.’
A year later, she left the door open. ‘Of course’ Ozzfest could return one day, she said. ‘You can do it for a baby stage, but you still need the headliners. It’s always great to have the baby stage, I mean, that’s what it’s all about, breaking new bands. That’s why we did it.’
Even though only the Birmingham date has been confirmed, Sharon has said she wants to bring the festival back to the US as well. For now, the Back To The Beginning concert film landing in cinemas later this year will serve as a bridge. The Ozzfest Villa Park 2027 lineup announcement is the next milestone to watch for.
