Sharon Osbourne Is Open to Reviving Ozzfest as Long as Bands Don’t Charge “Trillions” to Perform
Sharon and Ozzy Osbourne appear to be open to reviving Ozzfest as a traveling tour.
The last Ozzfest took place in 2018 as a one-off concert at The Forum in Los Angeles; however, the festival was originally conceived as a Lollapalooza-style traveling tour and operated in that format for years after the inaugural Ozzfest in 1996.
Ozzy brought up the possibility of bringing back Ozzfest in a new episode of The Osbournes podcast. While the family was on the topic of music festivals, Ozzy asked Sharon if she’d ever consider throwing another Ozzfest.
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“Not just one [at] the fucking Forum, but a whole Ozzfest [tour]?” he asked, to which Sharon replied: “Yeah, sure. Of course.”
Here, Kelly noted that hosting the festival would come down to bands and artists being “realistic” with their booking fees, prompting a response from Sharon.
“Why is it when it comes to us that everybody thinks that we are trillionaires, and so that every manager who wants their band on our festival wants one of the fucking trillions they think we’ve got to put on the festival?” pondered Sharon.
Ozzy suggested booking smaller, more affordable acts (Sharon largely disagreed, saying they’d still need proper “headliners” and a “baby stage” for smaller bands), while Jack made the comparison between the current metal festival circuit — i.e. Slipknot’s “Knotfest” — and the original Ozzfest format.
“Well, it’s the same bands just going around and around and around,” added Sharon. “But that’s what’s so good, because we started something, people have taken it, and it’s still great for the genre. It’s really good.”
Here’s hoping another Ozzfest is on the horizon. Headlining the fest — an Ozzfest tradition — would certainly be a way for Ozzy to return to the stage in style, as the 75-year-old singer has repeated his interest in eventually playing more gigs.
Watch the new episode of The Osbournes podcast below. The conversation about Ozzfest takes place at the very end of the episode.
