STA, 25 July - Metaldays, a large festival dedicated to metal music, is taking place near Tolmin in the north-west of the country where the Tolminka and Soča rivers meet. More than 50 bands will perform this year, including Napalm Death, Incantation and Celeste.
The line-up includes Incantation, a veteran death metal band from the US, French band Celeste that fuses black metal, sludge metal and post-hardcore, English grindcore band Napalm Death, Slovenian heavy-stoner metal band Britof, and Sick of It All, a veteran of the New York hardcore punk scene.
The organisers warn on the festival's website of a new parking regime due to the construction of a bypass road that will run through a part of the festival area.
Since Covid restrictions relaxed this year, allowing music festivals to return to the Sotočje area, the Tolmin municipality decided in the spring to introduce new rules for organisers.
Under the new regime, organisers must ensure free access to the riverside area during the day and the duration of the music programme is limited to eight hours a day and should wrap up by 1am at the latest.
To protect the area and keep the original spirit of the festival alive, the number of visitors is capped at 12,000. The festival will run until Friday.
The past two summers, the organisers of Metaldays had to cancel the largest festival at the Sotočje area due to the pandemic. Last year, a scaled-down iteration was held though at the end of July under the slogan Weekend of Consolation.
