NEWS
ØYA Festival has confirmed another wave of acts for its already packed 2026 programme, with Lily Allen, TOMORA and Band Of Horses all joining the bill.
The Norwegian event will return to Tøyen Park in Oslo from Wednesday August 12 through to Saturday August 15. Back in October, The Cure were unveiled as the first headline act, while Amyl And The Sniffers were also named among the early additions.
Shortly after, it emerged that Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds would be sharing top billing with The Cure, headlining the festival as part of their European tour plans for 2026.
Further announcements followed in November, when organisers revealed CMAT, Sombr, Underworld and Lambrini Girls. The following month brought another influx of names, including Geese, Blood Orange, Mogwai and several more artists.
As 2026 gets underway, the festival team have now shared another major update to the bill. Lily Allen is among the latest confirmations and will appear on Saturday August 15, where she is set to perform her 2025 record West End Girl from start to finish. The news arrives as the singer prepares for a busy year of festival appearances and headline shows, marking a full scale return following the widely praised album.
Band Of Horses are also set to make their way back to the festival on Friday August 14. Their first ever European festival performance took place at the same site in 2006, and nearly twenty years later they will mark the occasion by playing their debut album Everything All The Time in full.
Also newly added to the bill is TOMORA, the high energy collaboration between Tom Rowlands of The Chemical Brothers and Norwegian pop artist AURORA. The project had already drawn attention after announcing a series of live dates before being formally introduced. Last month, the duo released their first single Ring The Alarm.
Elsewhere in today’s announcement on Thursday January 29 are Marit Larsen, formerly part of global pop duo M2M, along with Norwegian singer songwriter Thomas Dybdahl, stoner rock outfit Slomosa, emerging artist Hannah Storm, Beth McBride which is the solo project of Bethany Forseth Reichberg, Norwegian folk collective Reolô and electronic group Nonne.
Tickets for the festival are available now, with further details and purchasing options accessible online.
Last year’s edition of ØYA Festival featured headline performances from Chappell Roan, Charli XCX, Queens Of The Stone Age and Girl In Red. The wider bill also included Fontaines D.C., Kneecap, Wet Leg, Beth Gibbons, Lola Young, Heartworms, Kelly Lee Owens and Khruangbin.
Speaking with NME during the event, festival director Claes Olsen discussed how the team tracks emerging artists who could eventually grow into headline performers. “I like to see bands develop naturally over time,” he said. “There are a few smaller acts right now that I think are genuinely special. People always ask who the next big thing is, but you can never really predict it. When we first started talks with Charli XCX and Chappell Roan last April, headline slots were not even part of the conversation. Things just kept building from there.”
NEWS
Sharon Osbourne has revealed she is holding early discussions about bringing Ozzfest back in 2027 as a tribute to her late husband Ozzy Osbourne.
The iconic metal festival was last staged as a full standalone event in 2018, followed by a one off New Year’s Eve show in 2019. Sharon now feels interest in a proper return is stronger than ever and says initial talks are already underway with Live Nation. Her vision is for a comeback that is larger in scale, more inclusive in sound and truly international in reach.
Speaking to Billboard, she said: “It was something Ozzy was very passionate about: giving young talent a stage in front of a lot of people. We really started metal festivals in this country. It was [replicated but] never done with the spirit of what ours was, because ours was a place for new talent. It was like summer camp for kids.”
Sharon has also made it clear she wants the festival to grow with its audience, suggesting the next version of Ozzfest could reflect modern listening habits by opening the door to a wider range of sounds beyond traditional metal.
She later added: “I’d like to mix up the genres.”
Should the plans come together, Ozzfest would once again travel internationally, recalling its late nineties and early two thousands peak when it became both a launching pad for emerging bands and a major platform for established heavy acts.
In an earlier episode of The Osbournes Podcast, Ozzy, who died in July 2025 aged 76, asked whether the festival could ever return. Sharon responded without hesitation: "Yeah, sure. Of course."
Their daughter Kelly then raised the issue of rising booking fees, suggesting that managers need to be more realistic when negotiating festival appearances.
Sharon responded: "Why is it when it comes to us that everybody thinks that we are trillionaires, and so that every manager who wants their band on our festival wants one of the trillions they think we’ve got to put on the festival?”
Ozzfest was originally founded by Ozzy and Sharon in 1996, at a time when she was also managing the Black Sabbath frontman, and began life as a two day event.
A year later, the festival expanded into a touring format, although by the time it returned in 2018 it had been scaled back to a single night at The Forum in Inglewood, California.
That final edition featured Ozzy at the top of the bill alongside artists such as Rob Zombie, Marilyn Manson and Korn’s Jonathan Davis.
