Hellfest 2022 is a sprawling, two-weekend-long event which, by the time all is said and done, will have featured more than 300 band performances. As exciting as that is, there's always a lot more to any festival than just live music with so many other sights to take in and things to experience. So, allow us to take you on a photo tour through the first week of this massive metal festival in Clisson, France.
The festival grounds are laid out with a total of six stages — Mainstage 1, Mainstage 2, Warzone, Valley, Altar and Temple — with all but the main stages adopting a loose stylistic cohesion to help fans regularly gravitate toward certain areas depending on which subgenres they're most interest in. This alone goes a long way in maintaining sanity when scrambling from stage to stage to catch your favorite acts when there's dozens to keep track of on any given day.
Among the biggest names who took the stage during the June 17 through 19 stretch of this year's Hellfest were Ghost, Gojira, Deftones, Judas Priest, Volbeat and Deep Purple, with other titans such as Sepultura, Electric Wizard, Mayhem, Suicidal Tendencies and more closing out their respective stages.
As you may have seen when viewing behind-the-scenes clips countless bands shared on social media as the weekend played out, the heat was scorching, with hoses on hand for security to douse the crowd and offer a quick hit of relief beneath the blazing sun. Hell, there's even a small swimming pool to dip into!
From a giant Lemmy statue, some wild pyro art, plenty of beer, tons of crowdsurfers, sweat-soaked performances, public displays of affection and the largest gathering you'll ever see directly outside of a bathroom on the hottest of days, go on a photo tour of the sights, sounds, and, yes the smells, of Week 1 of Hellfest 2022 from the opening of the gates, through the days and into the nights.
See photographer Nic Bezzina's exclusive photos for Loudwire below, and be sure to check out more of his work on his website and Instagram.
For more information on Hellfest, visit the festival's website.
