Sharon Osbourne confirms Ozzfest will “absolutely” return in 2027
Sharon Osbourne has confirmed that Ozzy Osbourne’s festival Ozzfest will “absolutely” return in 2027.
The wife of the late Black Sabbath frontman, who passed away aged 76 last July, confirmed the news in an interview at the MIDEM 2026 conference in Cannes, which was recorded last month but released on March 2nd.
“Yeah, we’re gonna do it,” Osbourne said, before adding: “The last one we did was 2018. It was just a month before Ozzy got sick, and that was at The Forum in LA. And there [were] no plans to stop it. We were still gonna do it, but Ozzy couldn’t.”
She explained that the idea of continuing Ozzfest after his death was discussed by Ozzy, which he gave his blessing to as she told him, “Yeah, it’s a brand. It will work without you.”
Osbourne subsequently said that the festival is “absolutely” set to return next year, with an even more ambitious scale of plans than during its original tenure from 1996 to 2018.
The music mogul teased that she is planning an even bigger production than ever, with the potential to make Ozzfest a touring event rather than being located at one static site.
However, she noted that the original genesis of the festival is due to remain the same, with heavy metal and rock acts dominating the line-up, but with the possibility of expanding towards artists of more diverse genres in the future.
She previously said in an interview with Billboard last month that she was engaging in talks with Live Nation as to how to plan and stage the event, in whatever form it takes.
It comes after the Osbourne family staged Black Sabbath’s final ever performance, Back to the Beginning, at Villa Park in Birmingham last summer, mere weeks before Ozzy Osbourne’s sudden passing from a heart attack on July 22nd.
Amid the outpouring of tributes that were shared for the heavy metal pioneer at the time, plans were speculated that Back to the Beginning could potentially become an annual tribute even in his honour.
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