No, There Will Not Be A Heavy Music Festival Held In A Castle

There was a brief moment a couple of days ago when it seemed that we had finally reached the peak of human achievement — holding a heavy music festival in a replica mediaeval castle — but, as with pretty much every other thing that sounds too good to be true, so too were the lofty dreams of slam-jousting to The Sword and pissing off the parapets.

Management and directors at Kryal Castle, outside of Ballarat, issued a statement overnight in response to reports that the fledgling Rolling Thunder festival — boasting a line-up featuring the aforementioned The Sword as well as Clowns, American Sharks, Beastwars, Radio Moscow, Holy Serpent, Fuck The Fitzroy Doom Scene and more — would be held at the theme park, advising that, although they had been "approached" by promoter Robert MacManus "to commence a dialogue", they had told him "not to be basing the event around the use of the castle before any discussions have taken place".

"Continued communications took place with no commitment or agreements for the use of the venue, and Mr McManus was advised definitively on November 12 that Kryal Castle was not interested in hosting the event."

However, Kryal's statement rubbed a few metal fans the wrong way when it asserted that the venue "has spent the last three years rebranding itself as a family-friendly, medieval-themed environment which is at odds with that of a heavy metal concert" (a far cry from 2006, when techno pioneer Speedy J played a rave there).

Some commenters took issue with the venue's phrasing — "Hold whatever events you want at your venue, but no need to imply metal fans are beneath your new brand," one wrote, while another posed the question: "So people who enjoy metal music are not appropriate, or family friendly?" — though organisers were quick to clarify their stance.

"Certainly not what we were implying at all," they addressed the concerned commenters. "Many of our staff are metal fans! An event of this size, number of bands, infrastructure requirements, etc is more than our venue can cater for. We feel that the event is at odds with our existing product, which is more theme park than music venue.

"The most pertinent point is that there was no agreement in place before commencing ticket sales, which we also felt was cause for concern."

However, soon after Kryal Castle made its post, MacManus' promotion company, Heathen Skulls, posted a statement to its Facebook page conveying that the festival would not proceed at the venue "due to unfortunate circumstances that related to a previous event at Kryal Castle", alluding to an incident at the park last month which saw two men assaulted during an Oktoberfest party.

"We would like nothing more than to continue as originally planned but the situation is now outside of our control and the venue is concerned about alcohol fuelled violence due to their recent experiences. Although we appreciate the efforts of everyone involved, it has become apparent that Rolling Thunder Festival needs to find a more suitable home."

The post goes on to explain that, despite the setback, the festival has apparently found an "amazing" new site for the event that will make allowances for camping, with full details due "very soon".

This is not the first time a Heathen Skulls event has found itself surrounded by contention — previously, planned tours for Sunn O))), EyeHateGod and Toxic Holocaust have fallen apart due to murky circumstances; the Sunn O))) fallout resulted in a professional wedge driven between Heathen Skulls and Life Is Noise, while the latter debacle was seemingly so strenuous for MacManus that, at the time, he had indicated that Heathen Skulls was no longer even a sustainable company.

Read the statement from Kryal Castle's management, as well as Heathen Skulls' follow-up (or is that rebuttal?) below.