REPORTAGE. "The population changes a little" : at Hellfest 2026, hard metal remains at the heart of the party even if its audience is growing

Music, a rock atmosphere and impressive stages. The 19th edition of Hellfest takes place until the evening of Sunday June 21 in Clisson, in Loire-Atlantique. Like every year, the poster is bloated with Iron Maiden, Sepultura, Limp Nizkit, The Offspring, Megadeth and many others. On the festival side, the event always seems to attract new audiences, undoubtedly less specialists than those who were there at the beginning, to the point of perhaps changing the identity of the festival.

At Hellfest, things don’t change. There’s metal in all its aesthetics from 10 a.m. and evening headliners like “Iron Maiden Helloween, Sepultura, Ultra Vomit, Sabaton and there’s a package”enthuses David, who has come to enjoy the festivities.

Next to this regular, his friend FX remains a little more reserved: “It’s the gauge that bothers me with the density of people. And in the evenings, you step on each other. That bothers me a little and you can see that they increased the gauge three or four years ago. Before it wasn’t like that, but apart from that, we’re happy.” With 300,000 spectators in four days in 2026, the festival welcomes ten times more audiences than in past editions.

The hard metal gathering is characterized today by its “giantism, but also professional in terms of the decor and the placement of the scenes. It’s tough because it’s cutting edge. Here, at the limit, if you have a criticism to make, you’ll say frankly, the shower is too hot”Sylvano abounds. The real change remains its audience, even if few regulars take offense, like Florian who recognizes that “the population changes a little bit”. For him, this audience “a little more variety is not a negative”.

There is everything at Hellfest, amazing disguises, simple rock fans, very young people, newcomers. With numerous editions behind him, Luc Frelon, programmer on FIP and FIP Métal, sees all this with detachment. “There are indeed people who come to see, I use big quotes, the Disney of metal. I don’t subscribe to this theory. There is something extremely spectacular. Metal in general has always either frightened or a little fascinated people who don’t really know it”details the programmer.

According to him, “Hellfest opened up a bit by having Shaka Ponk play, by having Muse play and therefore attracting a more mainstream audience. I think that the proponents of ‘it was better before’ are more in search of their youth or of something lost. It’s not at all audiences or populations in opposition, it’s brewing.” The recipe remains the same at Hellfest. The latter is full each year as soon as tickets go on sale, without any programming announcement, thanks to this energy which is transmitted from the stage to the public.