The History of Sonic Temple

Rock on the Range, 2007 to 2018

The first Rock on the Range was one day, Saturday, May 19, 2007, at what was then Columbus Crew Stadium. setlist.fm logs 15 acts that day across two stages: the main stage inside the stadium and a second stage set up along a parking lot next to it. Velvet Revolver and Evanescence played the evening before ZZ Top closed the night, and VintageRock's reviewer described a sold-out crowd of about 30,000. The event was co-promoted by Danny Wimmer Presents (DWP) and AEG Presents, and it came back the next May over two days, still on two stages. The reunited Stone Temple Pilots headlined the first night of that 2008 edition, in what Rolling Stone called their first full-scale show together in nearly eight years.

The festival grew a day at a time. A third stage arrived in 2009, and in 2013 a Friday became a full day, the three-day shape it kept until the end.

Not every year went to plan. Soundgarden were booked for the Friday of the 2017 edition and did not play after Chris Cornell's death that week; the festival held a tribute to him at the time their set had been scheduled. The festival's last two years were also its biggest, and after the 2018 edition DWP announced that Rock on the Range was finished.

The 2019 Rebrand

The replacement was announced in November 2018: a new festival at the same stadium, called Sonic Temple Art + Music Festival. Pollstar reported at the time that DWP cited creative differences with co-promoter AEG Presents, and AEG later sued DWP over the split. The first Sonic Temple ran Friday to Sunday, May 17 to 19, 2019, with System of a Down, Disturbed and Foo Fighters headlining, plus a comedy and spoken-word tent alongside three music stages. The weekend ended badly. On Sunday, high winds forced an evacuation of the grounds and cut sets short.

Five acts from that first bill are back in 2027: Beartooth, In This Moment, Meshuggah, The Black Dahlia Murder and Badflower. Cleveland.com counted three different outfits on Maria Brink inside In This Moment's short 2019 set, and New Noise rated Beartooth's hometown show, built around a creepy take on glam-metal staging, among the most dynamic of the weekend.

Three Years Off

The 2020 lineup came out in December 2019 with Metallica booked to headline Friday and Sunday and Slipknot on Saturday. Metallica dropped out in February 2020, with Red Hot Chili Peppers and Tool named in their place, and the next month the whole festival was cancelled because of COVID-19. A planned 2021 edition was cancelled as well, and there was no Sonic Temple in 2022. Four acts on that never-played 2020 bill finally get their Columbus date in 2027: Knocked Loose and Testament on Thursday, The Pretty Reckless on Friday and Ghostemane on Sunday.

Back as a Four-Day Festival

The return was announced in November 2022, and Sonic Temple came back over Memorial Day weekend, May 25 to 28, 2023, as a four-day festival for the first time. It had three stages that year, with Tool headlining Thursday and Avenged Sevenfold, Kiss and Foo Fighters topping the rest of the weekend. It has run every May since and has grown every year. A fourth stage came in 2024. In 2025 Metallica finally played, headlining Friday and Sunday as they had been booked to five years earlier, with Korn on Thursday and Linkin Park on Saturday, and DWP reported a sold-out 175,000.

For 2026 the festival added a fifth stage and, according to DWP as reported by the Columbus Dispatch and NBC4, drew more than 184,000 people over four days; the Dispatch called it the third straight year of record crowds. My Chemical Romance, Shinedown, Bring Me The Horizon and Tool headlined. In 2026 the main stage inside the stadium was the Temple Stage, and the four outside it were the Cathedral, Citadel, Sanctuary and Altar stages. The 2027 stage names and set times haven't been published yet.

The Stadium

Historic Crew Stadium opened on May 15, 1999, as Columbus Crew Stadium, with the Crew hosting the New England Revolution. It was MLS's first purpose-built soccer stadium, privately financed for $28.5 million by Lamar Hunt's Hunt Sports Group, and it sits on the grounds of the Ohio Expo Center and State Fairgrounds beside I-71. A permanent stage went in at the north end in 2008, the second year of Rock on the Range. The stadium's own description puts concert capacity at up to 35,000.

The name has changed twice. A naming deal announced in March 2015 made it Mapfre Stadium, and when that deal expired in December 2020 the Crew renamed it Historic Crew Stadium. The team kept playing there through 2021 before moving to its new downtown stadium. The old ground is still in use: Columbus Crew 2 plays there, the Crew train there, and the UFL's Columbus Aviators arrived in 2026.

DWP and Its Sister Festivals

Danny Wimmer Presents, the Los Angeles company behind Sonic Temple, now advertises seven festivals in four states. Sonic Temple is one of two in May. Welcome to Rockville at Daytona International Speedway comes first, and several 2027 acts route straight from one to the other, including Seether, Skid Row and Meshuggah. The rest of the calendar is Inkcarceration at the Ohio State Reformatory in Mansfield in July, Louder Than Life and Bourbon & Beyond in Louisville in September, and Aftershock and GoldenSky in Sacramento in October.

Sonic Temple isn't going anywhere soon. In 2025 DWP announced a five-year extension of its partnership with Historic Crew Stadium, which, as Pollstar and NBC4 both reported, keeps the festival in Columbus through at least 2030.

Who on the 2027 Bill Has Played Here Before

Two of the four headliners have long histories at this stadium. Korn, who close Sunday, played Rock on the Range in 2009, 2011, 2013 and 2017 by setlist.fm's festival records, then headlined Sonic Temple's Thursday in 2025. Falling in Reverse have the clearest climb of anyone on the bill: a secondary stage at Rock on the Range in 2012 and again in 2015, the Saturday main stage under Kiss and Rob Zombie in 2023, a ten-song set in May 2024 that opened with "Zombified" and closed on "Ronald," and now the top of Saturday. Blink-182 (Thursday) and Iron Maiden (Friday) round out the top line; Maiden's date is one of two festival headline slots that end the band's third and final North American leg.

Friday is heavy with Rock on the Range alumni. Alice in Chains played it in 2009, 2013 and 2018, and in 2025 were booked for the Sunday main-stage slot right before Metallica until a medical emergency for drummer Sean Kinney called off the rest of their May dates. Beartooth, the Columbus band, took that slot on less than two days' notice and play Saturday in 2027 under a "Hometown Show" billing. A Perfect Circle were among the Rock on the Range headliners announced for 2011. In This Moment's 2012 set, per PopMatters, had Brink dressed as a general and a couple from the crowd getting engaged onstage. And Nita Strauss opened the 2017 main stage by playing "The Star Spangled Banner" on guitar.

The rest of the weekend has its own returnees. The Offspring played the 2017 edition, were booked for Sonic Temple 2026 and dropped off about six weeks before it, on March 31, as did Crown The Empire, a 2016 Rock on the Range act; both play Thursday in 2027. Mastodon played Rock on the Range in 2014, and their 2025 Sonic Temple set came with guitarist Nick Johnston about a day into the job. Highly Suspect played it in 2015 and 2016, Clutch in 2016 before a Sonic Temple set in 2024, and Ministry in 2015 before Sonic Temple in 2025. Ministry's Sunday set is billed as their final Columbus show.

The Bottom Line

Sonic Temple is a new name on an old event. The stadium, the May date and much of the booking logic carry straight over from Rock on the Range, and the 2027 bill reads like a reunion of both eras: Rock on the Range regulars like Korn and Alice in Chains, bands that came up through its side stages like Falling in Reverse, and acts from the cancelled 2020 lineup finally getting their turn. With the stadium deal running through at least 2030, the festival's next chapter stays in Columbus.

Browse the full 2027 lineup, read who to see or the first-timer's guide, or sort the bill by style in the genre guide. Set times aren't out yet; they'll go on the set times page once Sonic Temple posts them, and practical questions are covered in the FAQ.