Indonesia’s Hammersonic Festival postponed again to 2023, Slipknot will still headline

The 2020 edition of Indonesia’s Hammersonic Festival has been postponed yet again, with the festival now set to be held in 2023.

Hammersonic’s organisers said in a statement posted to social media on March 10 that they have decided to delay the 2020 edition of the festival to March 18, 2023, following concerns about the spread of the Omnicron variant of the COVID-19 virus in Indonesia.

This is the third such delay, as the festival was initially rescheduled from March 2020 to January 2021 before being delayed yet again to March 2022. The festival’s original headliners, Slipknot, are still slated to perform next year alongside other acts from the 2020 line-up, though the organisers did not name which. There will be new bands added as well.

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The organisers have promised that all tickets already purchased for Hammersonic 2020 will be valid for 2023, and those still holding on to their tickets by the time the festival rolls around will receive free Hammersonic merchandise, including t-shirts, hoodies and trucker caps, while limited stocks last.

The organisers have also teased a series of ‘international festival roadshows’ titled Sonic Journey to be held in several regions in Indonesia this year.

The news of a third postponement has not been received kindly by fans, however, with many calling for refunds or leaving sarcastic comments on social media. “Three years. My unborn nephew from that time is now able to walk,” quipped one Instagram user, while another observed, “At this rate we’ll be waiting till 2030”.

Some users also commented that following the third postponement of Hammersonic, they have become less confident in other upcoming large-scale music events. “I want to buy concert tickets, but I’m scared for another Hammersonic situation,” a user tweeted, a sentiment that was echoed by other Indonesians worried the upcoming JogjaROCKarta Festival and Joyland Festival would suffer from similar circumstances.

Indonesia is currently battling 376,461 active coronavirus cases, according to local news agency Antara News. A total of 5,335,846 have recovered from the virus, with a total of 151,703 deaths as of March 11.

Indonesia has begun to relax its COVID-19 test rules for domestic travel as cases have begun to trend downwards. The Straits Times reported that fully vaccinated domestic travellers, including foreigners, no longer need to undergo a test to travel as authorities prepare to treat COVID-19 as endemic in the country due to high vaccination rates.

In January, it was reported that Indonesian festival promoter Ismaya Live is planning to organise an “offline festival” this year. “There’s a huge demand from the Indonesian audience for the return of offline music festivals,” Ismaya Live’s marketing officer Pratista Ayu told the Jakarta Post for a report investigating the possibility of the return of music festivals to the city.

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