Graspop Metal Meeting is a Belgian heavy metal festival held in Dessel each year since 1996, excluding 2020 and 2021 due to covid restrictions. Despite the small size of the festival grounds the festival draws a large number of spectators from around the world, with a total of 220,000 visitors in 2022 and 2023, up from 200,000 visitors over the course of the 2019 edition, and 152,000 in 2015.
In Flames performs at Graspop 2008
The field of graspop just before the 2008 festival
Cradle of Filth are an English extreme metal band formed in Suffolk in 1991. The band's musical style evolved originally from black metal to a cleaner and more "produced" amalgam of gothic metal, symphonic metal and other metal genres. Their lyrical themes and imagery are heavily influenced by Gothic literature, poetry, mythology and horror films. The band consists of its founding member, vocalist Dani Filth, drummer Martin 'Marthus' Škaroupka, bassist Daniel Firth, guitarists Marek 'Ashok' Šmerda and Donny Burbage, and keyboardist Zoe Marie Federoff.
Cradle of Filth in 2018. (L–R): Dani Filth, Marek 'Ashok' Šmerda, Lindsay Schoolcraft (background), and Richard Shaw (Daniel Firth is out of frame).
Founding member and vocalist, Dani Filth
The infamous "Vestal Masturbation" T-shirt design
