Earlier this month, rumors of a potential Ozzfest return swirled online after Sharon Osbourne noted that she’d been talking about the festival’s potential return with promoter Live Nation. Immediately, interest in the iconic traveling North American festival exploded and of course the official social media accounts for the once annual event began teasing a potential return as soon as next year.
Well, during a recent appearance at MIDEM 2026 at the Palais des Festivals in Cannes, France, Sharon Osbourne herself pretty much single-handedly confirmed that Ozzfest is coming back next year.
“ Yes, absolutely. Yeah, we’re gonna do it. Well, the last one we did was 2018. It was just a month before Ozzy got sick, and that was at the Forum in L.A. And there was no plans to stop it. We were still gonna do it, but Ozzy couldn’t. And Ozzy and I would talk about it, and he’d say, ‘Do you think Ozzfest would work without me?’ And I’m, like, ‘Yeah, it’s a brand. It will work without you.’ And he said, ‘We should do it.’”
In the annals of metal history, Ozzfest remains one of the bright spots throughout the 90s and early 2000s. For many bands, that festival was a launchpad to greatness. Slipknot, System Of A Down, and so many other bands of that era can point directly to the Osbournes and their wild traveling festival as the start of so many good things.
As previously reported, it’s been rumored that the return of Ozzfest would bring it back to its traveling roots, effectively dropping the style of the last couple fests that saw the event planted in one location.