In 1980, promoter Paul Loasby, along with Maurice Jones, planned a one-day festival dedicated specifically for bands within the
hard rock and
heavy metal genre. Loasby was an established and successful promoter working that year on the
Rainbow UK tour and penned the festival as the final show of the tour for the band to headline. Jones knew the owner of the
Donington Park race track, Tom Wheatcroft, located next to the village of
Castle Donington in
Leicestershire, England, and the site was chosen to host the event. (A year earlier, promoter
Bill Graham’s July 1979
Day on the Green Festival at Oakland Coliseum in California was also dubbed "The Monsters of Rock" show. This concert featured
Aerosmith,
Ted Nugent and
AC/DC.) Donington Park was unknown as a major location but its location in the
East Midlands next to the
M1 and A42 allowed for better transportation to the site from around the country. Additionally, the site ground level sloped which allowed for a better viewing for the audience throughout the site. The first Monsters of Rock line-up consisted of a mix of British and international bands. The event was a success with 35,000 heavy metal fans attending. Although only conceived as a one-off event, it was mentioned on the day the idea that the festival will return the following year and the first edition birthed what would become a regular festival for the next 15 years, becoming synonymous as a Mecca for fans of the genre and further establishing the
Midlands as the home of heavy metal. Over the years, the attendance continued to grow, reaching 107,000 in 1988–where two fans died during the
Guns N' Roses set. The blame was initially accounted to the large size of the crowd and a rush forward during the band's set. But it was officially declared that the cause was laid on the weather, causing muddy and wet conditions on the sloping ground. As a result, the festival did not take place in 1989, and it was replaced that year by a two-day festival similar to Monsters of Rock, the
Moscow Music Peace Festival in Soviet Union, which included performances by several Monsters of Rock veterans
Bon Jovi,
Ozzy Osbourne,
Mötley Crüe and
Scorpions. Monsters of Rock returned the year after with a limitation to the crowd of 75,000. The festival had been held in parallel in West Germany from 1983 to 1991. In 1984 and 1986 the festival branched into Sweden. In 1988, the festival occurred for the first time in France, Italy, Spain and the Netherlands. It was held as a one-time event in 1991 in Russia (one of the largest concerts of all time, with an estimated audience of over 1.6 million), Poland, Belgium, Hungary. In 1994, the festival was exported overseas to Chile, Argentina and Brazil. In 1993 the
Monsters of Rock radio show debuted in the United States with host Harlan Hendrickson. Guests on the show include everyone from
AC/DC,
Kiss,
Van Halen,
Judas Priest,
Motörhead,
Cinderella,
Ozzy Osbourne,
Bon Jovi,
Cheap Trick,
Mötley Crüe,
Ratt,
Dio,
Y&T,
Guns N' Roses,
Slayer and
Poison. The Monsters of Rock festival continued on as the premier hard rock and heavy metal event in Great Britain in the 1990s but started to fall upon hard times as heavy metal became less popular, with another cancellation in 1993 due to being unable to find a strong enough headliner. In 1995 the festival found itself in a similar situation until
Metallica agreed to play with the condition of the band having control over the event and naming it "Escape from the Studio". In 1996
Ozzy Osbourne and
Kiss co-headlined the festival and although there were plans to extend the festival into a two-day event in 1997, the promoters once again found themselves in a struggle for headliners and the event was cancelled and discontinued. Donington Park remained event-less until 2001 when the Rock and Blues Festival and
Stereophonics held events at the site. In 2002 the
Ozzfest tour returned to the UK using Donington Park as their only British event and the following year
Live Nation picked up the reins as Monsters of Rock's successor in the name of
Download Festival. An outstanding success from the offset, the festival continues to this day having increased to a three-day event with five stages, though as of 2008 the event has been relegated outside of the track. On the 16th of November, 2002, Monsters of Rock was held in Wembley Arena as a one-day 'festival' and featured The Quireboys, The Dogs D'Amour, Alice Cooper, and Thunder. In 2006, the Monsters of Rock name was revived and held at the
National Bowl in
Milton Keynes, England, for a one-off event headlined by
Deep Purple and with
Alice Cooper as a special guest. In 2012 Harlan Hendrickson & Monsters of Rock Worldwide partnered with Larry Morand and Mike London to launch the inaugural Monsters Of Rock Cruise. ==Line-ups==