After taking 2025 off due to issues related to its lineup, the hard rock festival extravaganza Sick New World will be back with two editions next year. The first will be held at the event’s customary home of Las Vegas Festival Grounds on April 25, while an inaugural Texas version is set for Oct. 24 at the Texas Motor Speedway in Fort Worth.
System of a Down will top the bill in both cities. Other acts appearing at one or both stops are Deftones, Korn, Slayer (performing Reign in Blood), Bring Me the Horizon, Evanescence, the Prodigy, Knocked Loose, AFI, Mastodon, Ministry, Power Trip, Failure, Filter, Melvins, Acid Bath, Danny Elfman, KMFDM, Coal Chamber and Clutch.
Since launching in 2023, Sick New World has hosted some of the only System of a Down performances in the past five years and has elevated both new and cult classic acts in the hard rock genre. “I had more fun there than I had on many, many other tours, and that’s why we’re doing it again,” frontman Serj Tankian told SPIN after the inaugural edition. “It was a blast. We rehearsed just enough to know our chops and then the rest, who the fuck knows? Let’s see what happens on stage.”
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Sick New World was set to return to Las Vegas this April with Metallica and Linkin Park, but the event was scrapped in December 2024 due to “unforeseen circumstances” that promoter Live Nation was “unable to overcome.” According to HITS Daily Double, the event ran into trouble in part due to its former booker, Jeffrey Shuman, overpaying for talent, with the two headliners allegedly pocketing $5 million each.