This was my second consecutive year going to Hellfest in Clisson, France. Hellfest is the second largest metal festival in Europe, after Wacken, with a daily attendance is 60 000 people. Still, tickets are very hard to come by. We took part on a group trip from Helsinki, including festival tickets, hotel accommodation, charter bus and flights. This seems like the safest bet to get to go, even though the arrangement leaves something to be desired for independent travelers.
The lineup was solid, though a couple of days might have done with a bit of beefing up with smaller acts to make them perfect. I had a trusted friend as my wingman going in, with our musical tastes matching each other. We made some initial plans before the trip on who we'd like to see, and everything clicked. We missed none of the performers on our list, and many of them exceeded expectations.
The festival itself is a dream, especially when it comes to production value. The venue is situated in the countryside outside the small town of Clisson, and sits there all year round, which means that all the logistics have been planned according to the festival's needs from the ground up. Vendor stalls, tables, benches and all have been welded out of steel and weathered metal sheets, which creates a stark contrast to Finnish festivals with foldable furniture and makeshift tents. You don't need to handle money at the festival at all, as all payments go through the cashless chip in your bracelet. This works very well, and you can monitor your spend and top up your account through the app on your phone.
Before reaching the main festival grounds, you pass through an asphalted area called Hellcity. This is where the first bars are, alongside with external merch vendors and affiliate stalls. There are a couple of small stages here, too, with small local names performing. There's a space for scheduled meet-and-greets, though the headliners don't seem to make it that far. There were stalls for Harley Davidson, ESP Guitars and a few others, plus a vape shop. On the first day of the festival, the area is super packed, with masses of people trying to pass through to the festival area, but later on it's pretty chill and a good place to meet up with your friends.
Once you get through the main gates (and the pro forma security inspection), you're left at the edge of the main lawn, which is sided by the tents that house the Altar and Temple stages (for blacker, darker and more suspicious bands), and crowned by main stages 1 and 2. The grassy field has several advantages over the sandy deserts at so many other festivals, as it's nicer to sit down on and doesn't turn into a swamp of mud if it happens to rain. In 2023 we spent the first several hours here, and were later shocked to discover how much we had yet to see. The two additional stages are tucked away behind a small forest. Warzone is a decent-sized stage faced by an amphitheater-like hill, home to punk bands and the more danceable, energetic stuff. Valley, close by, is about the same size, and hosts stoner and doom bands and other more atmospheric acts.
There is a lot to say about the art. As soon as you step through the gate, you are greeted by a gargantuan chrome skull resting on a giant concrete pedestal. This thing would by itself would be the defining centerpiece of any Finnish festival, but here it's just the beginning of a long lineup. There are others like it, with a giant (15 meter?) Lemmy statue deserving a special mention. This year's new attraction was called La Gardienne des Ténèbres (The Guardian of Darkness), a 10 meter tall, moving, scorpion-woman sculpture. It seemed to take more than a dozen people to operate, and made for an impressive showpiece - especially in the dark. One curious thing we noticed was the almost total lack of the Fritz Lang's Metropolis -inspired theme on the grounds. The Infernopolis looked nice on the promo material and merch, but it was totally absent in the physical form.
Accommodation, food and drink
If you're an adult and need clean sheets and a shower to enjoy a festival, the options are to pay top dollar for a house in Clisson (6000€/week is a price we heard, but the group had close to 20 people) or live in a hotel in Nantes. Nantes is a city the size of Espoo about 30 km away from Clisson. There's a tram-train connection that takes about half an hour, and the schedule is decent enough. From the train station there's a walk of about 25 minutes to the festival area, but the route is beautiful, if steep at times. We preferred the walk over queuing to shuttle buses every time. You could also take a cab from Nantes to somewhere relatively close to the festival area for 60-80€, which might pay off if the train schedule doesn't work for you. Be prepared to pay cash.
This year the food at Hellfest was decent to good, and the prices are reasonable. Many places push the usual burger and fries type of deal, and we had hot dogs and pizzas to boot. The more popular venues will often have seriously long queues though, and you might have to wait in line twice - once to place your order and once to pick up your portion. I suppose there is some logistical benefit to organize it like this, but I never got to the root of it. What was missing this year was an amazing Argentinian grill stall, where I ate exclusively in 2023. Most dishes were in the 12-15€ bracket.
Beer and other drinks are not sold by the food vendors. You buy them from from the festival's own stalls set in sea containers which are liberally sprinkled all around the grounds. A pint of Carlsberg was 7,5€ and a pitcher of 1,5 liters about twice that. You can get a pour of soda for 3 euros or a Red Bull for 3,5€. There were a few additional options on offer in select locations, such as Guinness and a local IPA that tastes like lager, but they generally were not worth the extra couple of euros in price. Outside of beer, there are other options for drinks, such as the low-alcohol mojito sold by the pint, and the House of Muscadet where legend tells it is possible to buy wine. There are bar-like stalls in the Hellcity area, where you can get a rum and coke or a shot of whisky. All in all the beer stalls are efficient and well-staffed, and often you can get away with just a couple of minutes of queuing, provided you manage to pick the right one.
I would not hesitate to recommend Hellfest to anyone. There's a broad selection of music to choose from, and it's one of the rare opportunities (at least from the Finnish perspective) to see some of the smaller US bands. If you're into corpse paint and shit you can easily spend most of your week with like-minded folks, but there's enough to fill the calendars of us plainer dad-bod types too. It takes some doing to get there, but it will be well worth the effort.