The first five years of the monstrous Fort Rock Festival took place in Ft. Myers, Florida, but it was quickly obvious that the festival had begun to outgrow this location. The 2018 Fort Rock Festival debuted its’ brand new home at Markham Park in Sunrise, Florida where producers AEG Presents and Danny Wimmer Presents were able to expand the capacity and provide an enhanced festival experience to the over 30,000 music fans that gathered! This year marked the largest attendance in the festival’s history.
It was utterly fantastic! We were able to enjoy two full days of music and fun in the sun with the likes of Ozzy Osbourne, Godsmack, Five Finger Death Punch, Shinedown and Breaking Benjamin, who were this year’s festival headliners. Fort Rock was the ideal way to kick off World’s Loudest Month! We could not even think of a better way to spend the weekend.
If you are the type of person that enjoys heavy metal/rock n’ roll, a festival atmosphere and some great eats then Fort Rock was certainly the place to be!
This year’s complete Fort Rock line-up consisted of some amazingly talented artists and was hosted by the lovable Jose Mangin:
Day One: Godsmack, Five Finger Death Punch, Shinedown, Halestorm, Bullet For My Valentine, Underoath,Trivium, Hatebreed, Texas Hippie Coalition, Power Trip, ’68, and Bad Wolves
Day Two: Ozzy Osbourne, Breaking Benjamin, Stone Sour, Stone Temple Pilots, Hollywood Undead, Sevendust, Pop Evil, Red Sun Rising, Avatar, Tyler Bryant and the Shakedown and Toothgrinder
We arrived bright and early to the festival site and could not believe just how expansive the grounds were, it was the perfect space for a festival of this caliber without everyone feeling like they were jammed in right on top of one another.
The vendors were spaced around the main festival space and there were plenty of food choices available no matter what type of cuisine may tickle your fancy. We are always huge fans of Island Noodles, but this year we also had a chance to sample some offerings from Agave Taco Bar and Mac Attack as well! There were so many choices, it was hard to pick just a few.
In addition to all the food choices, Monster Energy Fort Rock offered multiple onsite experiences, including the Monster Energy Experience featuring Monster Energy tastings and signings with select artists, f.y.e. Fan Experience where fans could purchase albums and get them signed by select artists, Florida Panthers Rock N Jock Experience featuring a grand prize courtesy of the Florida Panthers and Shinedown, Love Hope Strength – the world’s leading Rock n Roll cancer charity – which hosted a free bone marrow donor drive, and Alligator Alley Harley-Davidson where fans could pick up swag and ride a Harley JumpStart mounted bike.
With all this fun stuff to do, we are almost forgetting the best part … the music! The stage set up was fantastic. There were two main stages set-up and the set times for each band ran like clock-work which left us truly impressed. The stages were directly next to one another, so no matter where you were in the festival grounds, there wasn’t a bad seat in the house.
All of the band performances were top-notch and each band seemed to feed off the energy and enthusiasm that was pouring forth from the crowd. Some of our highlight sets from the weekend included the amazing performance from Ozzy Osbourne, who was sounding better than ever, as well as, stellar sets from Shinedown, Godsmack, Halestorm, Hollywood Undead, Breaking Benjamin, Stone Temple Pilots (with their new lead vocalist) and Tyler Bryant and the Shakedown to only name a few. We truly felt that each and every band gave it their all and the feedback applause and smiling faces coming from the crowd really said it all!
We were completely impressed with Fort Rock 2018 and seriously are already counting down the days until next year’s festival! We urge music fans to make the trek down to Markham Park in Florida for one heck of a rocking weekend at Fort Rock, as it is definitely a lot of hard rocking bang for your buck!
Check out our galleries of Day One and Day Two of Monster Energy’s Fort Rock Festival 2018 Below.
All images credit: Johnnie Crow
Day One Photo Gallery:
Day Two Photo Gallery:
