Since 2010, COPENHELL has been an unstoppable force on the European festival calendar, bringing four days of delicious, blood-soaked craziness to the Danish capital each year.
Set within the gritty, industrial harbour-side location of Refshaleøen, right in the centre of the city, the annual event draws thousands of metal fans from across Europe and beyond – all ready to unleash hell upon the Scandic soil.
With approximately 39,000 people stepping onto the site each day this summer – breaking the festival’s attendance record – once you enter under the skull-adorned giant arches that mark the entrance, there’s so much to be discovered at COPENHELL 2026.
There are food vendors with head-shakingly punny names like ‘Piegatory’ and ‘Falafhell’, stalls selling Viking drinking horns, Muay Thai fights, a comic con celebrating the relationship between heavy music and nerd culture, Rubik’s Cube tournaments, and plenty of fresh, cold cans of Monster Energy being given away to help fuel you through the day.
Really though, what makes a festival is the people, and that’s where COPENHELL truly stands in a league of its own.
As soon as that wristband is secured in place, you’re welcomed into the family with open arms. One of the friendliest, most community-minded festivals on the circuit, everyone that steps through those gates is hellbent on ensuring that not only do they have a great time, but that everyone around them does too. The type of environment where you can arrive alone and leave with thousands of new friends; it’s exactly what every metal festival should be about. Finding your people, looking after them, and singing along to plenty of excellent bands with them all by your side.
It’s a feeling that NECKBREAKKER’s Joakim Kaspersen describes best when we chat to the Danish death metal band shortly before their Friday night set:
“The best part of COPENHELL is that once a year I get to see all of the friends I’ve made throughout this band’s history. Everyone from the Danish metal scene is here, and you’re not going to walk more than five minutes until you stumble into someone you know… It’s a place where, once a year, everyone gathers for a mini vacation.”
Transforming the harbour peninsula of Refshaleøen into a metal wonderland for the festival’s fifteenth year, here’s a rundown of some of the artists Rock Sound managed to catch whilst exploring the mayhem and magic of COPENHELL 2026.
Ice Nine Kills
There’s something about the gloriously unhinged nature of an Ice Nine Kills show that aligns so perfectly with the spirit of COPENHELL. A showcase of the weird and wonderful with fun firmly at its centre, the Boston mischief-makers’ set on the Helviti stage is exactly what you’d expect: gory, theatrical, and stacked with enough riffs to get any metal fan’s blood pumping.
Serving up stomach-churning violence and the deepest of belly laughs in equal measure, there’s everything from severed limbs to Art The Clown swinging a bloodied foetus around his head. Delivering an hour of their signature gross, playful antics to a huge crowd ready to lap up every disgusting drop of it, this is exactly the kind of place Spencer Charnas and co. belong.
PRESIDENT
It seems impossible to overstate the magnitude of PRESIDENT’s rise. Making their COPENHELL debut to an absolutely monstrous crowd gathered before the Pandemonium stage, people are scrambling for the best view before the band even take to the stage, when all there is to see is a podium and some black-and-white flags waving in the light breeze.
Once they do emerge though, the mysterious masked collective waste no time barrelling into some of their hardest hitters, with ‘Fearless’ and ‘Dionysus’ sparking some of the first circle pits of Thursday afternoon despite the blazing sun beating down upon the crowd. Keeping the energy high – with a healthy mix of exhilaration and mesmerisation spread across the thousands of faces bearing witness to their rally – there are plenty of reasons why PRESIDENT’s name is impossible to ignore right now, and every one of them is on fine display here.
Papa Roach
“COPENHELL… this feels nothing like Hell,” Jacoby Shaddix smiles after wrapping up an explosive rendition of ‘Falling Apart’ with a speech about the importance of family.
From the unified crowd standing before them to the inclusion of the frontman’s literal sons in the set – Jagger Shaddix spitting some incredible bars during ‘See U In Hell’ and Brixton Shaddix bringing the energy to ‘BRAINDEAD’ – family is precisely what’s driving Papa Roach’s main stage slot. Rattling through the hits whilst repeatedly expressing their gratitude for everyone who has gotten them to this point – including a heartfelt shoutout to Korn, the first ‘big’ band to ever take them out on the road – it’s sixty minutes of pure love on the Helviti stage. A celebration of nu-metal that draws one of the biggest crowds of the weekend, and one of the biggest sing-alongs courtesy of the iconic ‘Last Resort’, three decades into their reign of the genre – Papa Roach are still absolute kings of the game.
Bring Me The Horizon
If there’s something Bring Me The Horizon have proved they can do better than most, it’s committing to the bit. Over the years, their live show has evolved into a fully realised experience, transporting audiences worldwide into the NeX GEn universe, and their COPENHELL debut is another masterclass in their creative chaos.
With PlayStation-inspired graphics plastered across the screens, before the start button is pressed there’s just one question to be asked of the crowd eagerly waiting to play: “COPENHELL, are you ready for the greatest night of your fucking life?”
It’s a bold offer, but one Bring Me are well-versed in delivering on by this point. From an incendiary run through of ‘House Of Wolves’ to a euphoric ‘Teardrops’ complete with a throat-shredding snippet of ‘Pray For Plagues’ during its breakdown, they’re in unstoppable form. Tearing through all the hits in epic style, over the course of almost two hours they’re accompanied by everything from flame throwers and dragons to heart-shaped confetti and the vocal talents of Emily – a fan who joins them onstage for a savage rendition of ‘Antivist’.
“I don’t know what we did to deserve this, but we are so fucking eternally grateful for you people,” Oli Sykes grins shortly before the evening draws to a close. “Thank you for letting us do what we love.”
In their most dialled-in, focused form yet, and seemingly still hiding plenty more up their sleeves, Bring Me The Horizon are the final bosses of the heavy music game in 2026 – and what better place to celebrate that than right here.
NECKBREAKKER
When green and white confetti explodes out across the crowd shortly after the gnarly opening bars of ‘Face-Splitting Madness’, it’s clear that something very special is happening here. Having built up a reputation as a feverish live band across Europe, Denmark’s own NECKBREAKKER have been on the verge of something big since the release of 2024 album ‘Within The Viscera’, and their return to COPENHELL feels like the ultimate promise of what’s still to come.
Shrouded in pyro as they blister through the raging thrash riffs and thunderous drums of crowd favourites ‘Shackled To A Corpse’ and ‘Horizon Of Spikes’ before offering a taste of their next chapter with nail-biting unreleased track ‘Between The Sun And The Gallows’, every moment is delivered with an unbelievable level of power and aggression, whipping up circle pits that leave dust swirling through the humid evening air. An exemplary display of passion and diligence, NECKBREAKKER are exactly what COPENHELL is all about: nurturing the next generation of homegrown talent, then unleashing them on the rest of the world to wreak their havoc.
Paleface Swiss
You’ll struggle to find another band in the modern metal world that operates with such razor-sharp intensity as Paleface Swiss. From the second that Marc ‘Zelli’ Zellweger tears into his opening cry of “I am a cursed one”, the Swiss deathcore powerhouses seem dead set on proving just why they’re one of the most talked about artists in heavy music right now, and they do so in impressive style.
With Zelli boasting an unbelievable range, darting from gutturals to squeals to rapped vocals, the pained yells and grunts of ‘Hatred’ feel utterly visceral, and the gradually building fury of ‘…and with hope you’ll be damned’ hits with pummelling force. Whether you focus your attention on the legion of fans crashing into one another in the centre of the pit, or those standing on the outskirts donning expressions plainly illustrating how impressed they are, it’s clear that Paleface Swiss are topping a whole load of COPENHELL highlight lists this year.
COPENHELL will return to Refshaleøen for its sixteenth outing in 2027, taking place from June 23-26.
