MUMBAI: Powered by Wacken Open Air, Bangalore Open Air is the only music festival that is solely dedicated to keeping the metal genre alive in the country. The third edition of the festival took place on September 13 which saw acts like Destruction, Rotting Christ, The Down Troddence, Threinody, Armament and Girish and The Chronicles. BOA 2014 was a crowdfunded event but, it did not manage to reach its target amount.

A festival purely for all metal-heads in the country, it has been inspired by the biggest metal festival Wacken Open Air. In spite of low funds via crowdsourcing in 2014, the event was a success, with metal-heads raving about the festival even weeks after it took place. The previous editions of the festivals have seen big acts like Kreator, Animals as Leaders, Leprous, Dark Tranquility, Iced Earth, Ihsan, Demonic Ressurection, Dying Embrace, Bevar Sea and many others.

BOA announced its partial line-up for the next edition of 2015, which includes British grindcore band Napalm Death and this will be their first performance in India. Other bands that have been announced are Belphegor from Austria, Inquisition from USA and local bands like Undying Inc, Gutslit and Plague Throat. The organisers have assured that this is a confirmed list of acts that will be seen at the festival next year. The already impressive line-up will add other international acts to its list in the coming months.

The ticket sales have also been announced with the pre-sales (Early bird tickets) currently gaining momentum at a low sum of Rs. 1500, which also comes with a free festival T-shirt.

Salman Syed, the man behind BOA said, "BOA 2015 will not be a crowdfunded event because, crowd sourcing is still a new concept in the country. People still need to realise why they should fund for festivals and that is going to take a while."

He added, "We announced the ticket sales earlier this time so that people start buying them and we get enough revenues to go ahead with it. We are also in talks with brands that will be associated with the festival."

This year, the festival had roped in partners like Vh1 and Kingfisher but, nothing has been revealed about the coming year. "We are looking for brands that can connect to heavy metal as a culture and accept the ideology of the festival. Metal is a niche genre and it is not easy to convince brands to be on board. Once we sort out the line-up, everything will fall into place," he explained.

He promised that they will be announcing bigger names – international and local – in the coming weeks. The 2015 edition will be bigger than ever and will be held on June 6 at Jayamahal Palace Hotel in Bangalore.