Ozzfest organizers have just announced all 25 dates for their first-ever free festival. The tour will launch on July 12 in Seattle and run through August 30 in West Palm Beach, Florida.
Once again, Ozzy will headline the event, which would be reason enough to show up even if the tickets cost the usual $2,500. However, since the tour is now free and funded entirely by event sponsors like Monster Energy Drink and Jagemeister — which will endorse the second stage — bands will no longer be paid for performing.
And capitalism being what it is, that means no other marquee acts will play the entire festival. "We know major headling acts [won't] tour all summer for nothing," Sharon Osbourne said in a statement. "But we're confident we can turn some of the genre's biggest bands on to what we're doing and have them come out to play a date or two."
No artists have been announced, but Osbourne said she already had "bands committed," and further emphasized the unprecedented nature and fee-good spirit of this year's event. "It's the first time that actually a summer festival tour has gone out free," she said. "There's been millions of free one-off shows, but this is gonna be a 25-city tour. And we're having our second stage, as usual, and everything goes as normal, except it's free."
Sadly, the bottled water, gyros, pizza, burritos and Tylenol will not be free.
The lineup for this summer's Ozzfest, according to a press release:
7/12 - Seattle, WA
7/14 - George, WA
7/17 - Sacramento, CA
7/19 - Mountain View, CA
7/21 - Devore, CA
7/24 - Phoenix, AZ
7/26 - Albuquerque, NM
7/28 - Denver, CO
7/30 - Kansas City, MO
8/2 - San Antonio, TX
8/4 - Dallas, TX
8/6 - St. Louis, MO
8/8 - Columbus, OH
8/10 - Tinley Park, IL
8/12 - East Troy, WI
8/14 - Indianapolis, IN
8/16 - Holmdel, NJ
8/18 - Hartford, CT
8/20 - Boston, MA
8/22 - Philadelphia, PA
8/24 - Pittsburgh, PA
8/26 - Detroit, MI
8/28 - Charlotte, NC
8/30 - West Palm Beach, FL
And now, here's something you won't see at Ozzfest — a six year old playing "Crazy Train."
