'70000 Tons Of Metal' Announces Public Sale For 2023 Cruise; NIGHTWISH, KREATOR, KAMELOT And DESTRUCTION Among Confirmed Bands

Public sales for the eleventh voyage of 70000 Tons Of Metal, the original, the world's biggest heavy metal cruise, will start Wednesday, November 30, 2022 at 12 p.m. EST / 9 a.m. PST, 18:00 CET and 17:00 GMT at 70000tons.com.

Round 11 will sail from Miami, Florida to Bimini, Bahamas and back from January 30 to February 3, 2023 on board the Freedom Of The Seas.

70000 Tons Of Metal features 60 heavy metal bands aboard a luxury cruise ship performing across four stages, including the world's biggest open air stage structure to sail the open seas.

Sailing on board the Freedom of the Seas, guests will enjoy complimentary fine dining, bars and lounges that never close, 24-hour room service and a host of onboard activities.

With ten consecutive sellouts since the first voyage in 2011, this five-day, four-night heavy metal music festival and Caribbean vacation offers 3000 metalheads the unique opportunity to mingle side-by-side with 60 world-class heavy metal bands.

Every artist will perform two sets on board. In addition to more than 120 performances, all festival-goers have access to the official 70000 Tons Of Metal All-Star Jam, meet-and-greets with every band, exclusive onboard premieres, artist clinics and workshops, artist-escorted shore excursions and more.

Ticket prices start at $966.00 USD plus taxes and fees per person.

The 70000 Tons Of Metal festival organizers have also announced a new partnership with Greentripper. Guests who attend the festival next January will have the opportunity to offset their carbon footprint by purchasing an optional carbon offset when booking.

Greentripper is an initiative of CO2logic, a reliable organization with more than 12 years of experience in climate consulting and the development of climate projects. They work with climate projects that meet the most stringent international standards such as the Gold Standard and VCS.

The projects are examined annually to ensure that their impact on climate change is truly effective. Carbon credits are issued in this certified system per ton of CO2 actually reduced. These credits are placed in a register and withdrawn once they are sold, to ensure that they are sold only once.

26 out of 60 bands have been announced so far:

NIGHTWISH
KREATOR
KAMELOT
DESTRUCTION
CYNIC
AMORPHIS
ULI JON ROTH
NOVEMBRE
ROTTING CHRIST
KORPIKLAANI
MÅNEGARM
INSOMNIUM
FALLUJAH
WARBRINGER
OBSCURA
OCEANS OF SLUMBER
MELECHESH
NIGHTMARE
EVERGREY
SIRENIA
JUNGLE ROT
FEUERSCHWANZ
ABYSMAL DAWN
VISIONS OF ATLANTIS
FRACTAL UNIVERSE
DECREPIT BIRTH

A year ago, the 70000 Tons Of Metal cruise creator, Swiss concert promoter Andy Piller, confirmed that the event was back on track after being canceled in 2021 and 2022 due to the coronavirus pandemic.

70000 Tons Of Metal has been one of the more unique and/or ingenious ideas to infiltrate the live music scene in the last decade.

"You have to see it took me from the point I had that quite insane idea," Piller, told FixionMedia.com in a 2014 interview. "It took me almost four years to get the ship in the water, so to speak. It was from the beginning that my thought was to make the ship as an annual event, given the fact it would work. When you start a new business, you never know if it will work or not. Isn't this what you're aiming for? Otherwise I wouldn't have put four years of my life into it. I wanted to establish it as an annual thing, and not spend four years of my life as a one-off."

Piller's extensive background in the European live industry gave him an up-close and personal look at the workings of the venerable open-air festivals that dominate the summer landscape. Seeing how successful these festivals are, coupled with a few drinks and some friends during a warm summer night at his apartment in Vancouver, helped spawn the idea for 70000 Tons.

"I have never organized big festivals," he noted. "I started as a local promoter in Europe, then switched to a touring role. Then I was working for a tour/production/road manager for 15 years, and that eventually brought me to Vancouver. It wasn't something far off. It's not like I'm a banker or dentist coming up with this. I totally had the idea and connections on how this could work, and I had been to most of the big European open-air festivals. That was the idea — just condense that and put it on a cruise ship.

"People thought I was nuts to have a metal fest on a cruise ship," he continued. "They thought it was nuts to have put 40 bands on there, and now we have 60. The idea is like, the average band has five musicians, and if you have 40 bands, that's 200 guests. It's a 1-to-10 ratio, and that actually created such a special atmosphere because there are so many musicians around. I'm sure it would have worked with less bands, but the question is, where's the breaking point? A lot of people are concerned we're going to make it bigger and lose the intimacy factor and so on. I think it won't, but just to keep the principles of the event the same, so okay, we add 1,000 people and we have to add 20 more bands. Now there are 3,000 guests and 60 bands."

For more information, visit 70000tons.com.