Hellfest Summer Open Air

Hellfest
Logo for the 2011 edition.
Genre	Heavy metal, extreme metal, hardcore punk, rock, hard rock
Dates	Mid-June
Location(s)	Clisson, France
Years active	2006–present
Founded by	Ben Bardaud and Yoann Le Nevé
Attendance	180000
Website
www.hellfest.fr

Hellfest, also called Hellfest Summer Open Air, is a French music festival specializing in heavy metal, held annually in June in Clisson in Loire-Atlantique. Its high attendance makes it one of the greatest French music festivals. It is also one of the biggest festivals of metal in Europe and the first in France.

It originated in another music festival, the Fury Fest, held from 2002 to 2005 in different places of the Loire; the Hellfest takes over in 2006 and knows, in a few years, a continuous rise in visits from 22 000 in the first edition to 152,000 paying visitors in 2015.

Its programming is primarily focused on hard rock and metal on the two main stages, while each of the four other festival's stages are dedicated to a particular style like black metal, death metal, hardcore punk, doom metal or stoner rock, making possible the presence of groups such as Iron Maiden, Deep Purple, ZZ Top, Motörhead and KISS, as well as that of Slayer, Megadeth, Sepultura, Cannibal Corpse or Anthrax.

The festival was the successor of Fury Fest, which was held in 2002 and 2003 in Clisson and Nantes respectively, and 2004 and 2005 in Le Mans.

In June 2009, numerous groups concerned about the concert name asked the festival sponsors to disengage from Hellfest. Coca-Cola announced a few days later that they will no longer support the festival.

In March 2010, two days before local elections, Prime Minister François Fillon and the leader of the MPF Philippe de Villiers came to support Christophe Béchu, candidate of the UMP for the regional elections of the Pays de la Loire. In front of 1,500 people Mr De Villiers reiterated his support for the candidate and attacked the metal music festival Hellfest: "Our values are not like those of the Regional Council (PS); to be funding a satanic festival!". The same month, former minister and leader of the Parti chrétien-démocrate Christine Boutin wrote to Kronenbourg asking them to stop supporting the festival. The 30 March, questioned by deputy Patrick Roy, the minister Frédéric Mitterrand declared to the Assemblée Nationale that the detractors of the festival should calm down. During the 2011 edition an homage was paid to Patrick Roy who died two months before.