About Temples Festival: A Short-Lived Blaze of Glory

Temples Festival was an annual heavy metal music festival hosted between 2014 and 2016 at Bristol’s emblematic venue Motion, before being cancelled in the summer of 2016 due to sudden sponsor pullout. The festival created a unique platform for underrepresented metal artists and underground bands from all extreme heavy metal genres and factions in the UK: sludge, grindcore, deathgrind, hardcore, drone metal, powerviolence, doom metal, you name it!

Temples: New, Independent & Assembling the Rarest of Heavy Metal

The Temples festival, named so after Bristol’s industrial Temple Quarter, was founded and organised by Francis Mace, a Bristolian by birth and veteran event promoter. It proudly stood for an alternative and independent music scene, eschewing corporate sponsorship with the self-coined maxim ‘No Sponsors. No Gods. No Masters.’

The festival became an international sensation straightaway in its first year, pulling punters from the other side of the Pond, Europe, Russia and beyond. Its British appeal, independent platform and diverse line-up featuring the likes of Electric Wizard, Clutch and Neurosis, quickly turned it into a pilgrimage event for heavy metal fans. Temples curated a one-of-a-kind line-up with domestic and international names, established and emerging artists alike.

2014 and 2015 Temples Editions

Temples would take place over a summer weekend – Friday, Saturday and Sunday, featuring a line-up of 70+ artists, local food vendors and additional interactive attractions. The unique venue, Motion, presented multiple sets and stages in the old Victorian warehouses that serve for its premises, including a converted skate-park and an old car garage. For the 2018 edition of the festival it is expected that there will be really new attractions! There was one huge speculation that due to the World Cup in Russia there will be giant stands for football lovers who could also tune in and watch some football for the most interesting games. Furthermore some betting will be open, but the organizers will be pushing towards online betting as it is more convenient with the limited space at the festical. If the rummours are true, the organizers have started making ranking of top rated betting sites that the metal fans (and football fans as well) could check and use during the World cup games at the festival.

Both 2014 and 2015 Temples editions were completely sold-out. Fans and performers were disappointed at the abrupt cancelling back in 2016, a few days before the actual fest was scheduled to take place. In its short and sweet lifetime, Temples managed to unite diverse factions on the heavy metal music scene and thrilled the metal fandom with a hardcore British summer festival like no other.