Headbangers Holiday At Metalcamp

An increasing number of heavy rock fans are discovering the joys of taking a week’s holiday in the marvelously picturesque mountains of eastern Slovenia.

Pride among their joys appears to be Metalcamp, a weeklong festival at Tolmin, which is on a ledge above the confluence of the Soca and Tolminka rivers.

It is, as Sinje Scherler from Berlin and Vienna-based Rock The Nation says, "a headbanger’s holiday."

Rock Nation has booked the 5-year-old event since it started and the numbers have grown to the point that it attracted a record-breaking 50,000 visitors over the course of the week.

Scherler says the often tropical heat, beach parties and bars and the mountain scenery and two stages of heavy rock led this year’s event to attract fans from 30 countries.

The music festival is five days long and pulls about 9,000 per day over the weekend and anywhere between 5,000 and 7,000 during the week.

There’s also a party the day before it starts and another the day after it finishes, which has led to many visitors staying the whole week.

The acts supplying the music at the headbangers holiday camp July 4-8 included Apocalyptica, In Flames, Ministry, Helloween, Morbid Angel, Soilwork and Heaven Shall Burn.