Sonisphere Organizers Announce 2015 Event Cancelled; Blame Lackluster Lineup...Statement Suggests 2016 Return Likely

Rock fans in the UK will have to take their attendance elsewhere this year as Sonisphere formally announced this week that the music festival chain would not be bringing its act to England this year, citing the inability to land a lineup up to snuff, according to NME.

"We've been working hard to get a line-up that we felt was good enough but also on a weekend which would avoid other events that we know rock fans would want to support," promoters said in a statement. "Unfortunately our last irons in the fire have just been extinguished and it's clear that we won't be in a position to run the event this year. We've said in the past that Sonisphere will only go ahead if we feel it is going to be good enough and that hasn't changed."

Sonisphere was founded during 2009 as a series of six one-day rock festivals across a number of European venues, including Knebworth Park in the UK. Last year's event was limited to the UK but featured a monumental lineup, including headliners Metallica, Iron Maiden and The Prodigy. That's quite a schedule to trump and apparently promoters couldn't come close.

The festival features a touch more competition than United States festivals of the same nature face. Although Americans have seen the continued growth of hard rock-centric festivals such as Rock on The Range in Columbus, OH and Rocklahoma in recent years, the UK has long hosted enormous gigs such as Download at Donnington Park.

Festival organizers seemed to suggest that the event isn't 100 percent kaput yet, signing off during the statement with "we plan to see you all in 2016." We can only hope.