On May 14th through the 17th the eyes of the hard rock and metal world will be upon Columbus Ohio where roughly 175,000 people will descend upon Historic Columbus crew stadium for the annual Sonic Temple Music & Arts Festival. This year the featured acts are a reunited My Chemical Romance, a red Hot Shinedown, first time headliners Bring Me The Horizon and the legendary Tool. New for 2026 is a fifth stage located towards the entrance of the festival dubbed “The Alter Stage” which will feature heavyweights such as Cradle of Filth, Body Count, Zakk Sabbath, Sevendust, Behemoth and many more breaking in the new fifth stage format. With the addition of this stage the festival now features close to 150 bands spread across 4 days. Hard Rock, Metal and this year more pop punk bands will be seen throughout the weekend. The diversity this year is more then most as you can see death metal such as Cattle Decapitation, Whitechapel and Metal powerhouses Slaughter To Prevail or chill out while listening to Sublime, Hinder and Daughtry. As mentioned, pop/punk is represented with Yellowcard, All Time Low, Simple Plan amongst Others. For the Nu Metal Crowd there is Coal Chamber, Powerman 5000 and Snot. These are just a few examples of the bands and genre’s you’ll be able to see at the show that’s now 97% sold out according to the latest posts by the official page.
Music isn’t the only draw of the festival as there is plenty of Food, venders and art to be seen as well. Sonic Temple and Secret walls bring you 15 artists in Live paint battles and on-site murals. That feature is hosted by Nick Major.
Some bands that we think are worth checking out that you may or may not be considering. Starting with at 12:30 on the Cathedral stage Thursday is the 2nd performance in 15 years by the band Egypt Central. High energy hard rock band that made waves with the songs “You Make me Sick” and “White Rabbit”. Playing at the same time over at the Sanctuary Stage is The Pretty Wild a heavy metal sister duo that is on fire as of late with their debut album “Point.Zero.Genesis” and in particular the live show w/ Standout performances at Inkcarceration 2025 and shiprocked this year.
Friday we are going to point to the Citadel stage at 2:10 for Missouri based “newcore” band Left on Red. These guys are red hot right now and earned their spot on this years festival by winning a fan vote contest.