KNOTFEST Australia 2025 Lineup Announced
Knotfest 2025 lineup
KNOTFEST, the destination festival brand curated by SLIPKNOT, returns to Australia in 2025.
The music and counterculture experience will hit the East coast of Australia starting on Friday, February 28th at Flemington Racecourse in Melbourne, then heads to Brisbane on Sunday, March 2nd at Brisbane Showground before wrapping up in Sydney on Saturday, March 8th at Centennial Park.
Headlined by SLIPKNOT, the 2025 festival line-up also includes A DAY TO REMEMBER, BABYMETAL, SLAUGHTER TO PREVAIL, POLARIS, WITHIN TEMPTATION, ENTER SHIKARI, HATEBREED, IN HEARTS WAKE, HEALTH, MISS MAY I, VENDED and SUNAMI.
Following their monumental performances launching Australia’s first ever KNOTFEST in 2023, SLIPKNOT will return down under in 2025 to headline proceedings for this not-to-be-missed rock and heavy music festival.
As always, attendees can expect a performance unlike any other, from a band who only get more thrilling, exciting and cathartic as time goes on. Having released a new record in 2022, The End, So Far (crowned at #1 on the ARIA Albums Chart; their fourth consecutive album to do so), SLIPKNOT refuse to rest on past glories and continue to innovate, with fan favourites including as many new songs as older. Between enduring fan-revered singles like Duality, Psychosocial and Wait and Bleed, as well as deeper cuts and newer material over the years, SLIPKNOT’s drive and creativity bleeds through their jaw-dropping live performances.
In 2012, the journey to creating a platform of their own in KNOTFEST, was born out of SLIPKNOT’s dedication to creating a memorable live experience for audiences around the world. Headline slots at some of the world’s biggest festivals including Download, Wacken, Rock In Rio, Hellfest and more perfectly set SLIPKNOT up with the ambition to take things further; building their own festival that not only championed new waves of incredible talent, but enshrined their own status as one of the best bands to do it.”
No strangers to Australian shores, Florida-hailing quartet A DAY TO REMEMBER head to Australia for the first time since 2019. Wielding an irresistible melting pot of metalcore, pop-punk and post-hardcore, A DAY TO REMEMBER have remained one of the most versatile and vigorous acts to emerge from the early 2000s, with the group remaining an active force from the halcyon days of Myspace and physical media through to the modern era of TikTok and streaming. In command of hundreds of millions of Spotify streams and YouTube views, seven studio albums, including two certified Gold records, entirely sold out tours in their wake, and their own curated Self Help Festival.
Electrifying purveyors of kawaii metal, BABYMETAL, will bring their kaleidoscopic infusion of J-pop-meets-heavy-metal wizardry. BABYMETAL have taken the heavy world by storm since first forming in 2010. Between their exclusive global fanbase, THE ONE, ongoing chart success, including the rare feat as becoming the first Asian act to storm to the top of the Billboard Rock Albums chart, avant-garde creative aesthetics and direction, and a legion of celebrity fans, including Corey Taylor, Rob Zombie, Metallica, Deftones and Limp Bizkit, BABYMETAL unleashed their fourth studio album The Other One in 2023 and sold out their first Australian headline tour in 2023. The group also recently teamed up with German metal partystarters Electric Callboy on the hyper and heaving track RATATATA.
After obliterating Aussie crowds with their debut Australian performance as part of Good Things Festival in 2023, Russian deathcore behemoths SLAUGHTER TO PREVAIL led by the formidable frontman, Alex Terrible, bring a ferocious blend of deathcore and blackened metal sonic onslaught that leaves no survivors. Their relentless pursuit of metal domination has led them to conquer stages across the globe, and their relentless dedication to their craft and their unwavering stance against violence, they have the ability to captivate audiences with their brutal yet melodic compositions.
Earning a reputation as one of the most formidable Australian heavy bands of their generation, Sydney’s POLARIS weld a gripping blend of melodic metalcore, electronica, lush post rock and heartfelt lyricism, with their most recent album, 2023’s Fatalism, earning the group their first ever #1 ARIA Albums Chart debut, winning AIR’s Best Independent Heavy Album award as well as securing their third ARIA Music Award nomination following nods for 2017’s The Mortal Coil and 2020’s The Death of Me. Along with their laundry list of accolades are sold-out headline tours of Australia and tours across the globe as well as appearing at multiple international festivals.
Pioneers of dark and anthemic music, WITHIN TEMPTATION, has captivated audiences for over 20 years and the Dutch powerhouse modern rockers will head to Australia for the very first time in 2025. Their career spans eight studio albums, over four million records sold and dominating the Billboard Mainstream Rock Charts, WITHIN TEMPTATION are renowned for their powerful live performances.
British rockers ENTER SHIKARI exploded onto the scene in 2023 and their 2007 debut album Take to the Skies generated significant chart success and certified Gold status. A band who wield an exhilarating amalgamation of alt rock, and electronica along with drum and bass, dubstep and beyond, ENTER SHIKARI also delve into societal and personal themes, seen most recently on 2023’s A Kiss for the Whole World, which debuted #1 on the UK album charts. They have garnered multiple award wins and nominations over the years, including for their unforgettable onstage prowess.
American heavy metal hardcore icons HATEBREED are set to detonate their monstrous live show down under, celebrating 30 years as a band. Commemorating three decades in existence that has spanned eight studio albums, multiple Billboard 200 appearances and global fanbase, HATEBREED are also primed to salute their seminal sophomore album, 2002’s Perseverance, with Australian audiences. Perseverance paved the way for the fusion of hardcore and metal and received worldwide recognition hailing HATEBREED as forefronts of the genre.
Hailing from Byron Bay, Australian metalcore giants, IN HEARTS WAKE, are fresh off the release of their sixth studio album, Incarnation and national Australian headline tour. IN HEARTS WAKE fuse themes of social and environmental justice into their palpitating brand of metalcore, with millions of streams and a dedicated fanbase across the globe flourishing alongside the band's environmental endeavours.
Adding to the brutality is Los Angeles industrial cult-faves HEALTH following their entirely sold out down under headline run earlier this year. An addictive and transcendent force to be reckoned with, HEALTH’s industrial-cum metal wiles lurch under your skin while balancing nihilism and mesmerising textures, witnessed most vividly on their 2023 full length album RAT WARS. All the way from Ohio, metal mavericks MISS MAY I will lend their trademark sonic fury to the KNOTFEST experience, following the recent unveiling of their entirely re-recorded 15th anniversary version of their beloved 2009 debut album Apologies Are for the Weak.
Hailing from Des Moines, Iowa, VENDED has been pushing the limits of combustible energy and raw aggression since their 2018 inception. Their bold, honest, passionate take on heavy music raises the flag for a new generation. Revolver heralded them as one of 10 Bands Leading the New Wave of Nü-Metal and they have shared stages supporting Bring Me The Horizon, Avenged Sevenfold, Korn, and Knocked Loose and headliners/festivals in North America, Europe and South America.
San Fran bay area hardcore group SUNAMI formed in 2019. Originally intended as a short-lived joke band however after gaining notoriety for their violent debut live performance, the band continued past their planned time frame with the release of three EP’s and their self-titled debut album in 2023. Revolver credited them as "in the upper echelon of bands dominating the hardcore zeitgeist.”
KNOTFEST Australia 2025 will see the elevated return of the fan-favourite KNOTFEST MUSEUM. The enhanced museum will unveil iconic items throughout SLIPKNOT’s 25 year defining career including new activations, photo op, and more that immerse you into SLIPKNOT history/lore. This can’t miss event will bring the globally loved attraction back to Australia. As this event sold out last time, tickets are strictly limited in each city.
