We are a group of metal fans from the Rhineland in Germany who have been offering a cheap lift to Wacken Open Air since 2008.

After travelling privately to Wacken in 2007 in a Fort Transit with a trailer, Robert had the idea in 2008 of hiring a bus and offering a tour to the W:O:A for the first time, with good service and lots of fun. Everyone was overwhelmed by the sensational demand! As the number of departure points and buses increased every year, Robert founded a company, Rockfahrzentrale UG (haftungsbeschränkt), in 2013 in order to be able to meet the ever-increasing demand in a legally compliant manner. Also in the year 2025 we will again be travelling to Wacken Open Air 2025 with many, many buses from Germany and Switzerland!

You can always find the individual departure points on our homepage here!

In 2025 we are looking forward to more and more guests from other European and international countries who will fly to one of the well-known German airports (Frankfurt, Munich, Cologne, or Düsseldorf) and then travel with us to the W:O:A!

Best regards, Rock ON!

Your Robert Skiba

The history of the Wackenbus in brief:

  • At the beginning of 2008, Robert, who has been travelling to Wacken privately with his friends for a long time, came up with the idea of using a coach from the Nürburgring, his home town, instead of a private car, as many friends and acquaintances from the Eifel region were travelling to Wacken up until 2008.
  • In order to be able to pay for the bus, the whole thing was advertised on various websites and in metal pubs so that the bus was full. Interestingly, the bus was sold out within a few days and the trip was great fun for everyone involved, even on the way to the festival.
  • Even today, many of the first participants still travel to Wacken “traditionally” on the Wacken bus.
  • But Lars from Grevenbroich was also on this bus, and he liked the idea of the bus so much that he suggested to Robert that next year we should take two buses to Wacken, and he would like to be the tour guide for the second bus.
  • It was decided to call the entire thing Wackenbus, as the domain (at that time still wackenbus.de) was still free and the name fitted.
  • The year 2009 was also fully booked again, and they successfully travelled to Wacken with 2 buses (from Trier and Grevenbroich) and everyone enjoyed it again.
  • in 2009, Christopher from near Bonn agreed to be the tour guide for a possible 3rd Wacken bus in the following year, which worked wonderfully again in 2010 with 3 buses.
  • in 2010 we got to know Kevin on the Wackenbus Mainz, whom we asked if he, as a guy from Odenwald, would like to look after a Mannheim bus in 2011.
  • After everything worked wonderfully and as planned in 2011, the bus got bigger again in 2012, and we were suddenly transporting over 350 passengers.
  • in 2012, we also had our first contact with the Wacken organiser and met and got to know Holger Hübner at the Wacken headquarters.
  • in 2013, the company Bock-Tours, which had been organising bus trips to the Wacken Open Air for many years, went bankrupt, depriving many passengers of their money and their pre-paid tickets for the W:O:A. Many of them were from Switzerland. Among them were many Swiss people, whom we were able to help spontaneously by organising a bus from Freiburg. On this bus was Mirj, who became friends with us and has been organising the buses and passengers from Switzerland ever since.
  • 2014 was the best year of the Wackenbus so far, with around 850 passengers and 17 buses from all corners of the country.
  • In the years 2015 to 2019, everything was the same, everyone had a lot of fun, and we regularly transported around 500–600 passengers to the W:O:A
  • After we had enthusiastically prepared for 2020, the corona pandemic came and with it the sudden announcement “W:O:A is cancelled”, which until then was considered unthinkable.
  • After the Wacken Open Airs 2020 and 2021 had fallen victim to the coronavirus pandemic, it was finally possible to start again in 2022 with just under 500 participants. Rockfahrzentrale UG barely survived, as many unplanned refunds and claims also caused a lot of costs.
  • 2023 was a difficult year for the Wackenbus. Due to the unforeseeable cost increases, the Wackenbus could not go online as planned directly after the Wacken Open Air 2022 in August 2022, as nobody knew how the bus charter prices would develop. In March, however, we were finally online again, even with a redesigned website. Unfortunately, only 7 buses in operation in 2023 with just under 400 passengers.

The basic idea of the Wackenbus was right from the start:

  • We take Wacken fans to the festival and back again at a reasonable price
  • There are tour guides on board who look after the passengers and who are usually metal fans like you and me. In the meantime, there are also routes such as the Austria route, where the bus driver and his wife look after the bus very well and the passengers really appreciate it!
  • And the party definitely starts on the bus!