I6Z6A6N NOTE: This was the very first Metal travel blog I did which was originally posted on my old MySpace Blog, which then went to my Wacken Trek website and has now found a home here in Metal Trek. There have been some minor changes from the original post to address some grammatical errors.
When I left the A&O Hostel, I took the train at the Hamburg HBF to the Hamburg Airport station, and from there I went looking for the shuttle buses. I asked one of the many fans inside the Metal infested airport and one group told me that the shuttle buses were not on time. This brought me some concern, so I kept walking around and I happen to encounter a couple from Canada, and I asked them if they knew anything about the shuttle buses, and they pointed me to 2 ladies who were the official staff representing the shuttle bus company, Metal Travel ( www.metaltravel.de ) and told me the buses are on time and showed me the hall that lead to the shuttle buses. I decided to find the group of fans from earlier and tell them that the buses were coming, and they decided to take the train to Wacken. Let’s hope they made it. When I got to the shuttle bus area, I was able to get an earlier ride to Wacken since that bus wasn’t filled to capacity, which definitely made my trek to Wacken easier. The Canadian couple I met earlier inside the airport also got in the same bus as mines, and by the time we left the airport, the bus was packed with Metal fans from all over the world, talk about a charter bus to the UN.
Once the bus arrived to the festival grounds, it was like seeing the pearly gates of heaven before me, except replace the words pearly with dungeon, and heaven with hell. I couldn’t believe my eyes that I finally made it to the Mecca of Metal, and the goose bumps were riding me like a wave. We first went to the ticket booth to present our tickets in exchange for a Wacken festival access bracelet, Metals equivalency of the Medal of Honor. Once I and the Canadian couple got inside, we went to the camp grounds to set up camp.
I camped with the Canadians since there were very few Americans to have our own sizeable camp, plus it was as close to home as I was going to get. I will say this about my camp site, at least we had a flag pole with unique flags that helped A LOT when it came time to get back to the camp grounds, especially at night. I got lost twice trying to find my way back at night.
After setting up camp, me and the Canadian couple went to one of the many festival entrances, and it lead us straight to the Metal Market area, where you had merch peddlers selling shirts, hoodies, CDs, jewelry, drinking horns, etc, etc, etc, everything a Metal fan needs in their lifetime and the many afterlife’s that await us.
One of the first things I saw that earned Wacken it’s reputation was the Jagermeister ride. What was awesome about the ride it was a bar that was lifted by a crane nice and high, and the people inside were served Jagermeister during the ride. That's the awesome part. What sucked about it? You had to enter a contest to win one of the coveted seats, which sucked for the rest of us who couldn’t go on it, but at least it made a hell of a pic and a background filler that added to the atmosphere that was Wacken Open Air, especially at night.
One of the common sights you get to see at Wacken were the people passed out on the random parts of the festival grounds because they were either: A) too tired, B) too drunk to walk, or C) just wanted to get a tan.
One of the first purchases I made while at the festival was the official Wacken Open Air shirts at one of the bigger Wacken Open Air merch booths, and there was a mob of people throughout the first day I was there.
There was also people crowd surfing in the Wacken Open Air merch booth, in which one of them actually waved some euros in the direction of the merch people, and sold him a Wacken Open Air shirt while the guy was still crowd surfing. People, if this one moment doesn’t make Wacken the Metal capital of the world, I don’t know what will.
We also walked around the festival grounds to see what we were getting ourselves into, and I was able to see the main stages, also known as, the Warfield, before the bands played, where millions of Metal fans will battle to the death.
There was also beer gardens, which goes perfectly with the festival since beer is the Metal fans choice of beverage.
The town of Wacken is something out of a fairytale book, the houses were nice and cozy, very clean front yards, and the townspeople were very hospitable.
The local supermarket, and possibly the most Metal Supermarket in the world, Edeka Aktiv Markt, was taken over by the Army of Metal Legions, which no doubt made the business owner very happy, until someone dropped a case of beer on the floor.
Before going back to the camp grounds, we stopped by a tent that was called Metal Place, and it had a DJ playing the music of Hell's Minions and for every time they played a Maiden tune, it was the alcohol taking control of my body and making me sing along to the tunes.
There was a dude sitting behind me who gave me a cup of beer since my sing along went to playing air bass and air guitar and head banging and the whole 10 yards of Metal fandom, to show his appreciation. So I returned the favor by knocking down his offered beverage in one shot.
One of the common themes of the Metal Place were people climbing the benches and tables and singing along to the tunes and head banging and air guitaring on the chairs and tables.
Another theme of the Metal Place was people falling off the benches and tables, which needless to say was part of the Metal Place atmosphere.
The locals were getting in on the Wacken action as well.
Once we were done at the Metal Place, we went to the camp grounds, but I did get a chance to snap a pic of the Wacken Open Air field office, which is a place lots of us would like to work at.
Wacken at night is something words can not even begin to describe.
The air was cold, it was almost dark, like a Black Metal CD cover, and there were people still awake enjoying themselves at the festival.
They even had a Wacken version of Dunkin Donuts, although more morbid, that was open 24 hours selling coffee, sandwhiches, pastries and doughnuts.
The Metal Market had some vendors still open at 3:30AM. Welcome to Heavy Metals version of Walmart.
The Jagermeister Ride at night looked even better, and those people up there were the envy of the festival attendees.
