Tuska Open Air Metal Festival Finland

Tuska Metal festival was conceived in the winter of the year 1998 by Tony Taleva, a real rock entrepreneur who´s been living and breathing heavy metal for the past 20 years.

And what about Tuska, the festival which year by year has become more and more a reference to the metalheads from all over the world? Well, it´s doing great and nowadays, for those who dream about being part of this kind of party, we can say that it´s almost even with Wacken Open Air (regarding quality), the biggest metal festival of the world, placed in Germany.

And as they like to say, Tuska´s history is made of blood, sweat and lots of vodka - and maybe it justifies its name, since the meaning of the Finnish word is PAIN

Tuska Open Air 2011

TUSKA OPEN AIR – Helsinki 22nd - 24th July 2011

And there I was again, honoring the biggest Heavy Metal festival of Finland, which this year gathered 28 thousand metal heads in 3 days of drubbing.

Tuska open air hosted 51 bands on 4 stages, counting on the headliners: Forbidden, Arch Enemy, At the Gates and Morbid Angel on Friday, Epica, Katatonia, Blind Guardian and Devin Townsend on Saturday, Meshuggah, Amorphis and Amon Amarth on Sunday.

The festival in 2011 brought lots of changes, first one, a new venue, and an old deactivated factory in Suvilahti, Helsinki. The reason for the change? Well, the festival has been growing up every year, so more space is needed. According to the press relations manager Niklas Nippola, the venue was an excellent choice due to its great space and location (100m from the subway station).

To Tuska´s old fans and faithful audience, it needs some time to get used, the former venue was placed in a park, exactly in the Center of the city, and it was really pleasant.

In a fast conversation with Tony Peju, one of the festival´s organizers and “the wise man” of King Entertainments, they were expecting an average between 25 and 30 thousand people during those 3 days, well, it worked and the festival showed to be one more time a big success.

Hard Blast and e-tainment news Europe thanks Niklas Nuppola and the whole Tuska staff for the accreditation and impeccable organization.

reviews & photos: Maila-Kaarina Riippa