Wacken Metal Battle Philippines is officially coming back next year.
After a one-year break, the Philippine arm of the prestigious global metal battle-of-the-bands competition is set to return in 2026. Initially held annually since 2022, the event’s previous Philippine iteration happened in 2024, before announcing that it will be taking a break from the competition in 2025.
The Philippines was first announced in 2021 to finally be joining Wacken Metal Battle and therefore be qualified to participate in the global event’s grand championship in Germany’s Wacken Open Air — one of the largest and longest-running metal festivals in world. Since the first edition of Wacken Metal Battle Philippines in 2022, the national competition has seen various regional finalists from Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao, with an international lineup of judges deciding the year’s Philippine national winners at a specially curated music festival that serves as the grand finals.
From these aforementioned regional finalists, three bands from across the Philippines have represented the country. Namely, these are the progressive metalcore groups ORCA from Manila, Redeemed By The Blood from General Santos, and SHVRIKEN from Cebu in 2022, 2023, and 2024 respectively. The first two editions of Wacken Metal Battle Philippines were held at the Amoranto Stadium in Quezon City, before moving to the MetroTent Convention Center in Pasig City.
This 2026, around 50 countries will be participating in the competition alongside the Philippines, as well first-timers Greenland, Cyprus, Malta, Chile, and Nigeria. Check out the full list below:
Asia
- Philippines
- Japan
- Indonesia
Africa
- Sub-Saharan Africa (Angola, Botswana, Kenya, Mozambique, Namibia, Nigeria, South Africa)
Europe
- Austria
- Balkan Region (Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Kosovo)
- Belgium
- Bulgaria
- Czech Republic and Slovakia
- Cyprus
- Finland
- France
- Greece
- Greenland
- Iceland
- Ireland
- Italy
- Latvia
- Lithuania
- Luxembourg
- Malta
- Norway
- Poland
- Spain
- Switzerland
- Sweden
North America
- Canada
- Central America (Belize, Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama)
- Mexico
- United States of America
South America
- South America Northern Region (Colombia, Venezuela, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador)
- Chile
While applications for Wacken Metal Battle Philippines aren’t officially open yet, Filipino bands interested in signing up may check out the details through the official Wacken Metal Battle website.