3-Days-Ticket: 97.90 Euro (incl. fees)
3-Days-Ticket + Camping (Hard/Smart): 123.80 Euro

Day-ticket Friday: 45 Euro
Day-ticket Saturday: 55 Euro
Day-ticket Sunday: 55 Euro

6/3 • Sacred Reich - Heathen - Axxis - Nifelheim - Sorcerer - Neck Cemetery

6/4 • Blind Guardian - Asphyx - Grave Digger - The Night Flight Orchestra - Atlantean Kodex - Villagers Of Ioannina City - Suicidal Angels - Indian Nightmare

6/5 • Accept - Sodom - Michael Monroe - Midnight - Night Demon - Artillery - Sulphur Aeon - WolveSpirit

[Dajana] I'm sure it's safe to say that there was hardly anything else the NH crew was looking forward to than to gather at :: Amphitheater Gelsenkirchen :: for our annual ritual to open the summer festival season: the ROCK HARD FESTIVAL!
Way too long we had to wait for this. Finally, we can meet friends again we haven't seen for ages, to drink the one or the other beer and to talk until we are blue in the face. Finally, we can lounge on the tiers of the amphitheater, enjoy the great weather and watch awesome bands performing live. Finally, we can enjoy pure festival feeling again.

[BRT] If someone would have told me in 2019 that there won't be festivals and shows for a long time, not only I'd have called him or her insane and would have recommended a visit in a nuthouse. How much we all have missed that we realize these days even more painfully, when meeting at little concerts and indulge in effervescent delight, excessive bender and uncontrolled celebration of music and bands and social interaction.
Normally, the ROCK HARD FESTIVAL is our first annual "family-meeting". To say that we "just" are looking forward to this year's edition is almost a brazen understatement.
I won't say much about the line-up. I'm pretty sure that some of the bands planned or wanted were not yet possible/available/manageable, whatever, for known reasons. Next to adequate headliners such as BLIND GUARDIAN and ACCEPT, I specially look forward to SORCERER, VILLAGERS OF IOANNINA CITY and SULPHUR AEON. I expect best entertainment from SACRED REICH, THE NIGHT FLIGHT ORCHESTRA, MIDNIGHT and NIFELHEIM, but I'm also in for a surprise what WOLVESPIRIT, MICHAEL MONROE and PHIL CAMPBELL have to offer. Most of all I expect a huge and epic reunion party with my favorite humans I did not see for a long time. Bartender, bring it on!

:: Friday :: Saturday :: Sunday :: Résumé :: Impressions ::

[Seb] Previous to the ROCK HARD FESTIVAL 2022, my last festival or better last live music overall had been a small Black Metal Festival in the Blackland (Berlin), mid-March 2020. For the next 27 months, there would either be no live music at all, or I could not be bothered to go: Anti-covid-measures like masks, distance and seating only simply don’t go well together with the sort of atmosphere I’d expect at a festival/concert and I’d rather wait than not have fun at an event. And, to be honest, up until early this year I didn’t like the potential risk/reward ratio either, before the pandemic fortunately had mercy and (at least for now) petered out in a rather harmless variation of Covid (or better very likely harmless, if you’re under 60, that is).
But at some point in time, there’s that moment where you HAVE to go out again (and I might even have done with Covid posing a greater threat than it does now), and with the RHF pretty much on the door step (at least when the public transport works for a change) this was always destined to be the first (and hopefully not last) festival of this summer. As usual, we did not visit the festival only or even predominantly because of the bands (a lot of the 2020 billing had changed anyways) but to meet friends, have some or some more beers and enjoy the very special location. There would still be several bands I’d look forward too though: NIFELHEIM, SULPHUR AEON, MIDNIGHT and (as no one could know before) ASPHYX would provide me with at least one band per day I’d very certainly like a lot.
[Dajana] Well, I have to say the whole NH crew actually contracted covid19 at RHF. As well as many friends and other people I know, no matter if at RHF, Wave Gotik Treffen or Rock am Ring. Guess, it was a calculated risk. I just find it interesting that nothing happened during indoor shows and other indoor events and now, where everybody is outside for three days we got it. Hm…

[Dajana] The festival ticket prices have been the same, because bought tickets in 2020 and 2021 remained valid. As for that, the day ticket pricing has increased a little bit. Much more, prices for food and drinks increased a lot. Looking on current situations and inflation it was to expect, wasn’t it? It though didn’t narrow the beer sales either ;) Well, perhaps on the rainy Sunday.
The ROCK HARD FESTIVAL was not sold out this year, not even on the BLIND GUARDIAN day. Another thing I expected. The whole back and forth during the pandemic took its toll.
[BRT] I met a guy from the Rock Hard staff on Sunday. He told me the Friday was sold out.

[Dajana] Of course, there was also a lot of entertainment around the ROCK HARD FESTIVAL. There was a new area outside called "Satanorium" (instead of "The Crypt" tent) everybody could enter for free, for readings, the „Painted In Blood" exhibition, a Radio Bob! booth, including a slot machine as well as roundtables with Ernie of Krachmucker TV. During the change-over times there was music provided by „Burning Steel“ DJ Martin Brumley on the beer garden stage.

Story • BRT, Seb, Dajana • pics © Dajana & Dajana Winkel • Photography