Ozzfest could be coming back in 2027.
The travelling heavy metal festival takes its names from Sharon Osbourne’s late husband, Black Sabbath legend Ozzy Osbourne.
Ozzfest was born in 1996, after the established Lollapalooza refused to feature Ozzy on its lineup. The inaugural Ozzfest brought Ozzy, Slayer, Danzig, Sepultura, and more to Phoenix and San Bernardino in the US.
After the festival expanded into the UK, Germany, Belgium, and Japan, its final edition took place in Inglewood, California, in 2018.
Now, after nearly a decade-long hiatus, Sharon has said that Ozzfest is “absolutely” in the works for 2027, revealing that Ozzy gave his blessing for it to return before his passing last year.
“Yeah, we’re gonna do it,” Sharon said last month during a sit-down talk at the MIDEM 2026 conference in Cannes, France (as per Rolling Stone). “The last one we did was 2018. It was just a month before Ozzy got sick, and that was at the Forum in L.A. And there [were] no plans to stop it.
“We were still gonna do it, but Ozzy couldn’t. And Ozzy and I would talk about it, and he’d say, ‘Do you think Ozzfest would work without me?’ And I’m like, ‘Yeah, it’s a brand. It will work without you.’ And he said, ‘We should do it.’”
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Sharon is envisioning turning Ozzfest into an even bigger production this time round, with plans to take the venture out on the road as a touring festival. She said the revival will remain true to its original version, with heavy metal and hard rock acts leading the lineup but with the possible addition of more genres.
It comes after Sharon previously revealed she was in talks to bring back Ozzfest.
In an interview with Billboard, Sharon revealed that she was “talking to Live Nation” about the return, with 2027 eyed as its return date.
“It was something Ozzy was very passionate about: giving young talent a stage in front of a lot of people,” she told the publication. “We really started metal festivals in this country. It was [replicated but] never done with the spirit of what ours was, because ours was a place for new talent. It was like summer camp for kids.”
Sharon previously discussed the demise of Ozzfest in a podcast episode in 2023.
“It was a very weird beast,” she said on The Osbournes at the time, “because all the bands were our mates, but the managers were greedy, and for some reason they thought that we were making billions on it and we weren’t. We made a profit. But it was not like – we couldn’t retire on it. And managers and agents wanted more and more and more, and it just wasn’t cost-effective anymore. We stopped because it just wasn’t cost-effective.”
Ozzy died on July 22nd last year at the age of 76. He passed a few weeks after playing his farewell concert, Back to the Beginning, in his hometown of Birmingham, England.
The massive concert featured Metallica, Lamb of God, Gojira, and many, many more metal and rock icons. Ozzy performed both alone and as part of Black Sabbath at the concert.
