Best In-House Festival Concept: BLACKENED Metallica Burger Experience At DWP’s Sonic Temple (2025 Excellence In Concessions Awards)

usic festivals are all about finding a good fit — from headliners to brand partners to site location, the right combination can add up to the perfect experience, and lead to success for event organizers.

There may be no better fit for a metal festival than Metallica, and in a business where lasting relationships mean everything, all parties are interested in expanding on that perfect pairing.

“Working with Metallica has been amazing. They care deeply about quality, about the fans, and about doing things right,” says Danny Wimmer Presents founder Danny Wimmer, after the band headlined this year’s Sonic Temple festival in Columbus, Ohio, in May, helping to sell out with 175,000 fans over four days.

Festival producer DWP has been collaborating with Metallica and its Blackened whiskey brand at its festivals since 2021, with in-festival activations involving the custom liquor at multiple events.

“Each year, we’ve continued to evolve the partnership, finding new ways to give our fans even more. It’s one of those rare collaborations that just feels completely natural – authentic, aligned, and built to last,” says Wimmer.

The collaboration has expanded to include noted chef Chris Santos, a diehard metal-head and managing partner and executive chef at TAO Group, among other businesses. Getting his start working with liquor brand Jägermeister, Santos has experience with the complex flavors of hard liquor and was more than up to the task of coming up with festival menu concepts involving Metallica’s whiskey.

“When you’re a chef and you have been doing it all your life, it’s sort of instinctual in a way when you taste something,” says Santos, who says he grew up idolizing KISS before sneaking into shows with his older brother to gigs by true metalhead favorites like Mercyful Fate and Pantera. “I knew that there was real promise in doing a series of burgers that would all have components either in or on the burger that utilize the Blackened whiskey.” The concept involved three different burgers, featuring fun names based on Metallica songs like “Master of Burgers” and “Creeping Death,” with a meal option served in a type of heavy metal Happy Meal box. There were also “meat and greet” opportunities with bands like Mastodon and others.

“The thing just took on a life of its own and was super, super popular,” says Santos, admitting the festival setting is challenging when it comes to running a kitchen, but who also commends DWP for the massive operation of building a festival from scratch. “I want to say we did about just under 10,000 burgers in four days, and we were only open really from two o’clock until eight o’clock, but that whole time there was a line of people.”

The Blackened burger concept at Sonic Temple builds on not only other Metallica collaborations but on DWP’s previous work with artists including Tool frontman Maynard James Keenan, Slipknot, Derek Trucks, Jim Gaffigan and others.

“Whenever we’ve brought the Blackened Burger experience to a festival, it’s consistently ranked as the number one fan-polled food activation,” says Wimmer. “We’re excited to not only see it return, but also to expand with similar concepts across more DWP festivals.” s