When mainstream festival promoters turned their backs on heavy metal in the mid 1990s, Ozzy Osbourne answered by building his own touring circuit. Established in 1996, Ozzfest reshaped the summer calendar, filling amphitheaters and arenas with extreme bills while turning underground contenders into festival headliners and cementing the Black Sabbath frontman as an elder statesman of the genre. Following Osbourne's death at 76 in the summer of 2025, questions lingered about whether the travelling brand could outlive its creator. Sharon Osbourne has now settled the matter, announcing that the festival will return to the UK on Saturday, July 10, 2027, with a date booked at the National Bowl in Milton Keynes.
The Milton Keynes event marks the first Ozzfest since a standalone New Year's Eve gathering at The Forum in Inglewood, California, back in 2018. That evening featured Ozzy alongside Rob Zombie, Marilyn Manson, and DevilDriver. Crucially, the 2027 edition will be the first in the brand's history to take place without Osbourne on site. His final public appearance, the Back To The Beginning farewell concert, took place at Villa Park in Birmingham just weeks before his death.
The original plan for the British leg was to stay in the Midlands. Sharon Osbourne had wanted to stage Ozzfest at Villa Park, leaning on the emotional weight of that farewell show. Those plans fell apart when ongoing building work at the stadium ruled out hosting live performances for the summer. Rather than push the revival back by another full year, the organisers decided to move the entire production south to the National Bowl.
For Sharon, maintaining the event represents an essential duty to her late husband's legacy, pointing out that Ozzy was the first musician to build a dedicated travelling metal festival of this scale. The National Bowl provides a historic outdoor setting that has welcomed heavy music across several decades. It remains an active fixture on the British circuit, having hosted Yungblud's BludFest in 2024 and a headline performance by The Prodigy earlier this summer.
Live music promoter Andy Copping, who worked alongside Sharon on the Back To The Beginning concert at Villa Park, has signed on to steer the production once again. Copping highlighted the personal significance of returning to the National Bowl, noting that work is already underway to assemble a lineup that matches the historical reputation of the touring brand.
The Milton Keynes concert is part of a wider international rollout. After the British date in July, the festival heads to the United States on September 11 for an appearance at the Glen Helen Amphitheater in San Bernardino. A week later, on September 18, Ozzfest will stage its first ever edition in Mexico, taking over Estadio GNP Seguros in Mexico City.
Reviving the name means confronting the financial realities that sidelined it in the late 2010s. During its peak in the late 1990s and early 2000s, Ozzfest served as a primary launchpad for heavy acts, providing vital daily exposure to emerging bands like Slipknot, System Of A Down, and Disturbed. Over time, demands from artist agents and representatives drove production expenses up. Reflecting on the situation in 2023, Sharon explained that while the tour still turned a profit, the escalating fees demanded by artist management made the travelling multi-stage format unsustainable to run year after year.
Earlier this year, Sharon confirmed that Ozzy gave his personal approval to reviving Ozzfest, intending for his project to continue supporting the global metal community. Tickets for the Milton Keynes Bowl show go on sale at 10am on November 6. The coming months will show how the production team intends to construct an Ozzfest bill when its founding figurehead is no longer there to close the night.
