The world's largest heavy metal music festival has told fans who are not already on location to stay home due to poor weather.
The Wacken Open Air (WOA) festival, which is held annually in northern Germany and is set to run this year from Wednesday 2 to Saturday 5 August, has informed festival-goers on social media that it was forced to make this "difficult" decision due to the "extraordinary" amount of rain.
"All metalheads in motor vehicles of all kinds are urged to cancel their trip to Wacken if already en route, or not to start at all," read a statement posted on the WOA's official Instagram page. "This applies until the end of the festival."
"We are very sad, but the continuing difficult weather situation unfortunately leaves us with no other choice," it added.
This year's event was due to welcome some 85,000 metal fans and 150 different bands, with headline acts including Iron Maiden, Megadeth, and Helloween. The organisers have confirmed that the scheduled performances will go ahead as initially planned.
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The organisers further noted that they will livestream "as much content as possible" for ticket holders who are unable to attend and that they will try to answer questions regarding potential refunds "as soon as possible".
"We need to stay strong and we all feel with everyone who can't attend," they added. "But if you are right now at our festival... we also made a promise to you: That we will try our best to deliver you a WOA 2023 as loud and this year definitely also as hard as it can be."
