A few weeks ago my friend, Rob Greaves, asked if I could get my uncle to answer a few questions about Sonisphere for a background feature he had to write for university. My uncle was happy to do so. Having read the article I thought it's really well written so asked Rob if I could publish for him. He went for it straight away so here it is.

About the Author: Rob Greaves studies Popular Music with Journalism at the University of Northampton.

Music festivals are nothing new, especially when it comes to hard rock and heavy metal; the first Glastonbury festival was held in 1970, and the first Monsters of Rock festival was in 1980. But a new festival has arrived, with intent to take over the world.

Sonisphere Festival may only be being run for its second year in 2010, but it has already achieved some spectacular things; foremost of which is being the first ever globally touring rock and heavy metal festival ever. Locations for Sonisphere include Greece, Sweden, the Czech Republic, the UK, Poland, Switzerland, Finland, Bulgaria, Romania, Turkey and Spain. John Jackson is the Series Creator and Director of Sonisphere and has big expectations for this year's festival; "Our licence is for 50,000 (people) per day and we will sell out all 3 days". "In the UK we have expanded the festival to three days whilst keeping the same two day price as last year."

Heavy metal as a genre of music began over 30 years ago as a darker, more sinister branch of hard rock. Black Sabbath are widely regarded as the genres main pioneers, alongside bands like Led Zeppelin and Alice Cooper who also had major influences on the scene. As the years passed, heavy metal began becoming more popular with bands like Judas Priest giving a more melodic and energetic edge to the sound. During the 1980's heavy metal began to get faster, darker and more aggressive, as well as more diverse. Metal began to generate a definite split between its sub genres; this included Thrash metal, Doom, Death metal and Glam, amongst many others. Whilst Thrash and Glam became increasingly popular, a lot of the metal scene became too extreme for many people and sank into the depths of the underground. Heavy metal has been slowly disappearing from the mainstream music scene since the 1990's, but still has hundreds of thousands of followers worldwide who love nothing more than to get together and celebrate heavy metal together, as a community. To metal lovers, it is no longer just a genre of music; it is something to be lived and breathed, and that is what festivals are all about. These festivals are about a mass of like-minded people enjoying their music together, and Sonisphere Festival is taking this idea and escalating it worldwide.

There are already a number of rock and metal festivals held across the globe every year, including Wacken Open Air in Germany, Hellfest in France and Graspop in Belgium. The UK hosts many well renowned metal festivals too, including Bloodstock and the notorious Download festival. But not only is Sonisphere the first ever global festival, they have another claim to fame that will draw most metal fans to this monumental event. "At the new European Sonisphere festivals in June we have managed to put together the legendary Big Four thrash metal bands Metallica, Slayer, Megadeth and Anthrax for the first time in history on one stage," John explains, "something that I am particularly proud of. As we were unable to arrange this line-up for the UK we offered a special deal whereby early buyers of Knebworth tickets were given a ticket to see The Big Four at Poland Sonisphere for free. This has proved to be very successful and indeed Sonisphere Poland is on course to draw 100,000 (people) on its debut."

Although the idea of a worldwide, touring festival was originally John Jackson's idea, the Sonisphere festival is a joint venture with Twin Peaks Ltd, and ex-Live Nation managing director Stuart Galbraith's company, Kilimanjaro Live. Alongside local partners for each country the festival takes place in, primary funding is from the AEG (the Anschutz Entertainment Group). The cost of this years festival is in the tens of millions (USD).

Although the line up changes slightly depending on which leg of the festival you attend, the line-up remains mostly the same throughout the tour so the experience and atmosphere remains largely the same no matter where you are in the world and nobody has to miss out. The UK headliners this year are heavy metal pioneers Iron Maiden, and Alice Cooper along with a UK festival first for Germany's pyrotechnic-mad Rammstein. The Finnish festival will be headlined by Iron Maiden too, but alongside Finland's own HIM. "In Finland we have expanded the festival to two days," explains John, "due to the massive demand of last year's first festival which sold out 60,000 in a day." The 'Big Four', Metallica, Slayer, Megadeth and Anthrax, will headline the festival in Switzerland, Greece, Poland and the Czech Republic.

This feature was written by Rob Greaves and published with permission.