Once again, we headed out west to Las Vegas, Nevada to attend Sick New World, held on April 25, 2026. We were happy it came back after the 2025 debacle that caused it to get canceled.
What was that debacle? No one truly knows. But the theory is that too many people were unhappy with Metallica and Linkin Park as headliners and there weren’t enough ticket sales to pay those bands’ exorbitant fees. That cancelation inspired us to go to Rockville 2025 instead.
The only thing better about Rockville is that Chevelle was there.
Unfortunately, they were not at Sick New World 2026, which is a bummer, but hopefully they’ll be back next year. (If there is a next year.)
The first cool thing that happened was that the band P.O.D. was on our plane. My husband snagged a picture with Sonny when we landed in Vegas and were waiting for our luggage.
Since they’re from California, I was curious as to why they were leaving from Philly. But apparently they were recording an album there. And yes our flight was delayed, but they made it to their show in time, thankfully! P.O.D. was one of our favorite sets of the day. They sounded great!
Another favorite of ours was Cypress Hill. I almost forgot that they were there, but I’m glad I remembered because my husband wanted to go off to see someone else and that would have been a mistake. Everyone was happy we stayed because they were so much fun and really brought the crowd’s energy up. We all had a great time “jumping around” with them.
Of course, the closing bands were amazing. My son loves Bring Me the Horizon, and Oli came down our aisle and slapped our hands, which was a cool experience for him. I missed recording Oli when he was doing that because I didn’t know he was coming until it was too late! But here he is going back down the other side.
We’ve seen Korn a billion times, but we’ve loved every one of those billion shows. We got to tell that to James Shaffer (aka “Munky”), Korn’s guitarist, when we ran into him at the Wynn on Sunday. He was just chillin’, walking around in his slides. He was incredibly nice!
And of course System of a Down was freaking amazing. One thing that stopped people from buying tickets for the canceled 2025 show was that System wasn’t headlining. SOAD barely plays live shows, so people want to see them, and it was disappointing they weren’t on the schedule. Everyone was thrilled they came back for 2026.
It seems like every year we go to Sick New World, it gets better and better. You can tell they’re learning from their mistakes as things ran very smoothly this year (from what I could see).
As far as VIP…was it worth it?
If you can afford it, yes! 1000%. Because you have better bathrooms, better cooling off areas, and more food and drink stations. We never had to wait long in any lines. (Except I wanted to get a hoodie, but the lines were forreeeevvvverrr long. I just couldn’t do it.)
We like to stake out a good spot by the fence (so we have something to lean on) fairly early at one of the main stages. Cypress Hill played on the main stage side we like and we just stayed put the entire rest of the evening. We don’t go on the side System plays on because it’s a much smaller VIP area. But we could see and hear them fine from our side.
That is one downside of VIP. The two main stage areas are next to each other, but in order to go from one to the other, it’s a HIKE. That’s why we don’t even try. We grab a good spot where we can see well and stick with it!
We also had pretty good weather this year. Sick New World 2023 was hot as hades. It was about 95 degrees with zero cloud cover and zero breeze. It was just HOT. In fact, that’s something we talked to Sam from Chevelle about when we met him. We reminisced about how friggin’ toasty it was.
Sick New World 2024‘s weather was very nice! When we got there on Friday it was raining and chilly. I was stunned. It’s never rainy and chilly in Vegas, is it??
This year the weather was beautiful in the day, but it got chilly at night. And it rained a little during SOAD’s performance, which made their set even more perfect.
Overall, Sick New World Las Vegas 2026 was a blast, and I truly hope they bring it back in 2027. What’s unique about this year is that they’re also doing a show in Texas in October. I like the idea of having it in two places, as long as they keep one in Vegas!
We’ll find out in just a couple more months…
Did you go to Sick New World 2026 (Las Vegas or Texas)? What did you think? Will you go to future SNWs if they have them?