Ozzfest was a traveling metal festival held annually between 1996-2008, and the show featured a variety of hard rock and metal legends including Black Sabbath, Ozzy Osbourne, Korn, Rob Zombie, Iron Maiden, System Of A Down, Hatebreed, Motley Crue and many more.
Recently, Sharon Osbourne revealed why the festival ended putting the blame on greed from the agents and managers of bands.
“Yeah, it was a very weird beast 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,” she said. “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.”
In a new episode of The Osbournes podcast, Ozzy Osbourne asked his wife if she would ever consider putting on another edition of the traveling festival.
“Yeah, sure. Of course,” she said, before adding that “it always comes down to” how much the bands are asking to be paid.
“It’s great,” she continued. “That’s what we wanted — everybody to do spin-offs and do their own festivals, and it’s great. It’s great for fans; it’s brilliant. But why is it when it comes to us that everybody thinks that we are trillionaires, and so that every manager who wants their band on our festival wants one of the f*cking trillions they think we’ve got to put on the festival?”
Ozzy said the festival could focus on lesser-known or newer metal acts.
“You can do it for a baby stage, but you still need the headliners,” Sharon replied. “It’s always great to have the baby stage, I mean, that’s what it’s all about — breaking new bands. That’s why we did it.”
“It’s very hard for acts who are not known to suddenly go and be in front of 50,000 people on a main stage at a festival and understand what they’re meant to do. It’s very intimidating. You could have maybe five thousand people at that baby stage, and then to go from five to fifty to sixty thousand people, and it’s really, really hard for baby bands. They’ve pay their dues anyway. That’s what it’s all about.”
Ozzy and Sharon’s son Jack said that most recently launched metal festivals are “basically just Ozzfest.”
Sharon replied: “Well, it’s the same bands just going around and around and around. But that’s what’s so good, because we started something, people have taken it, and it’s still great for the genre. It’s really good.”
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