Iron Maiden have turned a concert into a weekend festival.
Already scheduled for a show on Saturday, July 11th, the metal legends will now also play the day before, creating an unexpected two-day festival at Stevenage’s Knebworth House.
The festival will feature ‘Maiden World’, which includes a stage with live bands who boast connections to Iron Maiden, a funfair, a museum, and an expanded bar.
The weekend will, of course, end with Iron Maiden’s own set, in which they’ll play material from their first nine studio albums.
The festival is being promoted as ‘Eddfest’ after famous mascot Eddie the Head.
Manager Rod Smallwood said (as per Louder): “After the monumental shows in the UK last year, we knew that if we were going to play the UK in 2026 it had to be very different. So we chose Knebworth Park as it gives us the space required — which is just not available in stadiums — to put together something groundbreaking for our fans by creating a Maiden World for them. W
“We are excited to now reveal the details of this one-off event to celebrate the band’s 50 year career, which we are now calling ‘Eddfest’, because, as everyone knows, Eddie is the true star of the show!”
Love Music?
Get your daily dose of metal, rock, indie, pop, and everything else in between.
Smallwood continued: “We also know Maiden fans are basically a huge gang and we want to give them a weekend to remember at Knebworth. For the last couple of tours we have been arranging the Eddie Dive Bars for our fans, both pre- and post-show.
“Some of these took over the entire centres of towns with thousands of fans gathered there enjoying the fun, the music and each other’s company. So ‘Eddfest’ is going to expand on that concept in a huge variety of ways, to create a truly unmissable ‘Maiden World’ over the whole weekend!”
In related Iron Maiden news, details for frontman Bruce Dickinson’s next solo album were recently revealed.
Sepultura guitarist Andreas Kisser let details slip in a social media post. He shared photos of himself in the studio with Dickinson, as well as a photo of Foo Fighters frontman Dave Grohl with mixing and mastering engineer Brendan Duffey.
“What a privilege! Truly an honor to participate on the new album of the great master of metal [Bruce Dickinson] a gentleman and a fucking legend! Thank you for letting me play some percussion on the album!” Kisser wrote.
He later added: “And [Dave Grohl] what a studio you created, simply magical. Hope you like the distortion from the new pedal [by Fuel Music Audio] 🤘🏻 Heavy Metal rules!”
The album will be the highly anticipated follow-up to 2024’s The Mandrake Project.
