OCEAN CITY — Rock fans in Southern Maryland who want to see Korn, Iron Maiden or Alice in Chains next spring face a choice of three festivals in a span of 11 days. Two of them sit at a NASCAR track in Florida and a soccer stadium in Ohio. The third is on the beach at the Ocean City Inlet, a few hours’ drive across the Bay Bridge.
Boardwalk Rock returns May 14-16, 2027, after skipping 2026, with Korn, Bad Omens and Iron Maiden as headliners. Its lineup overlaps heavily with the two largest rock festivals in the country: Welcome to Rockville, May 6-9 at Daytona International Speedway, and Sonic Temple Art + Music Festival, May 13-16 at Historic Crew Stadium in Columbus.
For a Southern Maryland fan, that overlap is the story. Many of the same marquee bands that will draw crowds of nearly 200,000 to Daytona and Columbus will also play Ocean City, a festival roughly a quarter of their size, with the boardwalk, the Jolly Roger at the Pier rides and the Atlantic at the edge of the grounds.
The same headliners, a different coastline
Korn is the clearest example. The band headlines all three festivals: opening night at Rockville on Thursday, May 6; opening night at Boardwalk Rock on Friday, May 14; and the closing night of Sonic Temple on Sunday, May 16.
Iron Maiden plays two of the three. The British metal band headlines Sonic Temple on Friday, May 14, then closes Boardwalk Rock two days later. The Ocean City show is scheduled to end the band’s 2027 “Run for Your Lives” North American run, making it the last chance on this side of the Atlantic to catch the 50th-anniversary tour.
Bad Omens headlines Saturday at Boardwalk Rock and Friday at Rockville. Alice in Chains and The Prodigy are booked at all three festivals. Judas Priest, Marilyn Manson, Good Charlotte, Cypress Hill, Bullet for My Valentine, Poppy and Loathe play both Daytona and Ocean City.
Boardwalk Rock’s daily lineup, as announced Oct. 20, breaks down this way. A full set-time schedule has not been released.
- Friday, May 14: Korn, Breaking Benjamin, The Prodigy, Cypress Hill, Slash featuring Myles Kennedy and the Conspirators, Clutch, Sevendust, Theory of a Deadman, Filter, All Them Witches, Corrosion of Conformity, Eve 6, Local H, Nonpoint and Soil
- Saturday, May 15: Bad Omens, Good Charlotte, Marilyn Manson, Motionless in White, Bullet for My Valentine, Poppy, Tesla, Superheaven, Buckcherry, Drowning Pool, Sponge, Showing Teeth, Tetrarch and Asava
- Sunday, May 16: Iron Maiden, Alice in Chains, Judas Priest, Sleeping with Sirens, The Pretty Reckless, Down, The Warning, Loathe, The HU, Apocalyptica, GWAR, Dirty Honey, The Flys and Mac Sabbath
Some of Boardwalk Rock’s draws are its own. Breaking Benjamin, Slash, Clutch, Sevendust, Tesla, GWAR, Apocalyptica and The HU do not appear among the top names on either the Rockville or Sonic Temple posters.
Where the big two pull ahead
Scale is where Rockville and Sonic Temple separate themselves. Both are produced by Danny Wimmer Presents and both book roughly 150 acts across five stages over four days. Rockville drew 210,000 fans from 30 countries in 2026, and Sonic Temple reported 184,000.
The two Danny Wimmer festivals also share a pop-punk and reunion streak that Boardwalk Rock does not. Blink-182 headlines both. Faith No More plays its first reunion shows at both, and Rockville adds Pierce The Veil, MGK, Papa Roach and The Offspring at the top of its bill. Sonic Temple counters with A Perfect Circle, Turnstile, Falling in Reverse and A Day To Remember, plus the large-scale art installations and live mural painting that give the festival the “Art” in its name.
Boardwalk Rock, produced by C3 Presents with Live Nation, is a smaller, beach-bound event: more than 40 bands on three stages, two on the sand and one along the boardwalk, over three days.
Festival Dates Site Size Headliners Welcome to Rockville May 6-9 Daytona International Speedway, Fla. 150+ acts, 5 stages Korn, Bad Omens, Pierce The Veil, Blink-182 Sonic Temple May 13-16 Historic Crew Stadium, Columbus, Ohio Nearly 150 acts, 5 stages Blink-182, Iron Maiden, Falling in Reverse, Korn Boardwalk Rock May 14-16 Ocean City Inlet, Md. 40+ acts, 3 stages Korn, Bad Omens, Iron Maiden
The cost of getting there
On ticket price alone, the three are close. Boardwalk Rock single-day general admission starts at $179, and a three-day GA pass starts at $339. Rockville’s single-day tickets start at $155. Boardwalk Rock also sells GA+, VIP and Platinum tiers, plus three-day private bungalows for groups of up to 12, and offers discounted GA tickets to military members, first responders, medical staff and educators through GOVX.
The larger difference is travel. From Waldorf, Prince Frederick or Leonardtown, Ocean City is a drive of roughly three hours. Columbus is about seven hours on the road, and Daytona Beach is a full day’s drive or a flight, before hotel costs for a four-day event.
A Boardwalk Rock ticket also includes access to the Jolly Roger at the Pier amusement park inside the grounds, and festival-goers can walk the boardwalk’s restaurants, bars and shops.
A rocky first run and a year off
Boardwalk Rock debuted May 17-18, 2025, as a two-day festival with more than 25 artists. Its original headliners were Def Leppard, Mötley Crüe, Nickelback and Shinedown, with Alice Cooper, Halestorm, Bush and Three Days Grace further down the bill.
The lineup changed twice before the gates opened. Mötley Crüe dropped out after singer Vince Neil needed a medical procedure. Alice in Chains was named as the replacement, then withdrew as well, and Rob Zombie took the slot.
In November 2025, the Town of Ocean City announced the festival would not return in 2026, citing a variety of challenges in delivering the same quality of event. Business Development Director Tom Perlozzo said the town was committed to working with C3 Presents to bring it back stronger in 2027. The 2027 edition now adds a third day and roughly 15 more bands than the first.
Alice in Chains, which never made it to the stage in 2025, is on the Sunday bill.
Ocean City’s three-season bet
Boardwalk Rock is the spring piece of a festival calendar C3 Presents has built at the Inlet. Oceans Calling, created with the band O.A.R., holds late September, and Country Calling follows in early October. All three use the same beach-and-boardwalk footprint.
That calendar had a rough 2026. Oceans Calling, which drew 162,000 people in 2025, was set for Sept. 25-27 with Dave Matthews Band, Twenty One Pilots and Mumford & Sons. A nor’easter forced its cancellation and chewed up the beach, and the town was left to count the cost of eroded dunes and a lost weekend. Pollstar reports Oceans Calling is expected to return in the same time frame in 2027.
Country Calling went ahead a week later on a recovering site, led by Chris Stapleton and Lainey Wilson, but it ran two days instead of the three it held in 2025, a cut local businesses watched for its effect on hotels and restaurants. The Chronicle’s wrap-up of the fall festival season covers both.
Boardwalk Rock’s 2027 return, with a third day added, moves in the other direction. It also puts Ocean City in direct competition for the same May rock fans as Daytona and Columbus. For listeners in Charles, Calvert and St. Mary’s counties, the matchup comes down to whether a deeper four-day bill is worth a longer trip, or whether Korn, Iron Maiden and Alice in Chains on the Atlantic, three hours from home, is enough.
Tickets and the by-day lineup are on Boardwalk Rock’s ticket page. Set times have not been announced.
