The Sanctum Festival 2026 Unveils Final Lineup – Featuring Headliners Shields, Hacktivist and Lastelle!
From a 100-capacity pilot event in 2024, to constructive conversations with industry giants UK Tech-Fest on running multi-day modern-metal festivals, our story at The Sanctum is one that has been intimately shaped by sharing ambitious ideas, being unafraid of asking questions, and letting our love of the UK metal community be at the heart of how we promote, operate and grow.
Taking place from Friday 14th to Sunday 16th August 2026, The Sanctum: Modern Metal Festival 2026 promises to further establish itself as a safe haven for upcoming metal and alternative acts at its 300-capacity outdoor stage at Dead Wax Digbeth, Birmingham this summer with twenty-one bands hitting the stage.
The Sanctum: Modern Metal Festival 2026 is set to erupt with its first headline set by Shields on Friday 14 August. Returning from a six-year hiatus following their debut LP, “Life in Exile” (2018), Shields offer a number of visceral cuts from their latest record “Death & Connection” (2026), one of the most emotionally-resonant, dizzyingly-heavy and musically mature outings ever released by a British modern-metal band. The twelve-track album features several standout tracks such as “Lacerate” [ft. Graphic Nature], “Parasites” and “Kill”.
On their headline slot, Shields say:
We are very excited to be back in Birmingham after playing at The Asylum recently to a wonderfully receptive crowd [with Vianova]. It is an honour to be returning this time as a headliner and as part of such a stacked bill!
At the helm of The Sanctum’s stacked Saturday stands Hacktivist, the genre-defying titans best known for cultivating the next generation of nu-metal with their cutting-edge, confrontational spinup of grime vocals and dark djent grooves. Armed to the teeth with a catalogue spanning fifteen years of precipice-pushing progressive metal and a history of supporting the likes of Korn and Enter Shikari, Hacktivist return to Birmingham for an exclusive 2026 live performance with expected tracks such as “Elevate” and “Armoured Core” bolstering an already-packed setlist of bangers from their two studio albums.
On their headline performance, Hacktivist comments:
For 2026, we’re focused on writing a new record for the H Gang. Progress is well underway and we’re excited to share a new flavour of Hacktivist. We’re taking some time to play some shows during the process, including The Sanctum. We can’t wait for this one and we’re stoked that the bill has so many great up-and-coming artists that we’ve had our eye on for a minute. Let’s flow, Birmingham!
Concluding the festival with emotionally-evocative post-hardcore, Oxfordshire quintet Lastelle are set to close out the weekend with an emotional headline set on the Sunday, comprising cuts from their latest outings “Exist vol. I” (2024) and “Exist vol. II” (2025). Following Lastelle’s performance at Download Festival 2025, the band have furthered their reverence across the globe thanks to their abundance of atmospheric, ambient instrumentation, soaring, spine-chilling choruses and the incredible utilisation of cinematic brass and trumpet passages.
Lastly, The Sanctum welcomes one final addition to the 2026 lineup in the form of this year’s opening band for the entire festival – The Mechanist – following the resounding success of their headline slot at The Sanctum’s official warmup show on 17th April.
The Sanctum’s 2026 lineup – listed alphabetically – includes Andromedous, Alchemize, Archives, ChuggaBoom, Cober Mouth, Defences, Divinitas, Doomed Cynicism, Downpour, Hacktivist, Lastelle, Meet Your Maker, The Mechanist, Rupcha Farms, Scatter The Tribe, Shields, Sixth Wonder, Swarm6ix, Take Breath, Tooth & Dagger, Vanitas and Writhe.
Creative Director and Operations Director – Joe Hammond and Emma Collins respectively – dive further into the festival’s evolution in 2026:
We are planning further and further ahead as the event grows, having interviewed people for our twenty-strong crew in February, when the lineup was already booked and locked in from late 2025.
With everything finished on the back-end ahead of schedule, we now turn our attention to building clear-cut policies on accessibility, allowing The Sanctum to be experienced by a wider, more diverse audience. We’ve been consulting with our patrons, and have created a stairs-free ground-floor environment with priority seating areas and sensory options like hearing protection, as well as working on inclusion and access policies for PA’s and Access Cards, which really opens the festival up this year.
The Sanctum seeks to be a home for all those who want to connect with the UK’s vibrant grassroots metal scene, mixing industry titan headliners with upcoming bands you may never have discovered previously – many of which are even new for us. Our mission, ultimately, is to reignite the next generation of metal in Birmingham, where everything our genre holds dear began back in the 70’s with Black Sabbath.
The Sanctum is bolstered with multiple food options, with stonebaked pizzas provided by Dead Wax Pizza, smashed burgers and chilli-loaded fries from Destination Burger, and an array of vegan options from both vendors.
The Sanctum also welcomes CDS Guitars and Trading With Tee, providing a range of guitar maintenance services, accessories and metal-orientated instruments, and a sizable selection of desirable trading cards and collectibles respectively.
Friday 14 August | 18:00 – 23:00
Saturday 15 August | 13:00 – 23:00, afterparty until 02:00
Sunday 16 August | 13:00 – 22:00
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