MUMBAI: Organisers of the Sonisphere Festival in the UK have announced that they have cancelled this year’s event. A statement was released on the festival’s official UK site on 16 January, with reason why the festival, which takes place in UK and other parts of Europe, was being cancelled.

According to the statement, the Sonisphere team claimed that they have not managed to get a line-up they felt was "good enough", which is why the decision to cancel the festival was taken. "We’ve been working hard to get a line-up that we felt was good enough but also on a weekend which would avoid other events that we know rock fans would want to support. Unfortunately our last irons in the fire have just been extinguished and it’s clear that we won’t be in a position to run the event this year," the note said.

It also stated that the team has always maintained that the festival will only go ahead if it feels that the event will be good enough. "We hope all rock fans have a great summer with all the festivals and concerts already in the calendar and we plan to see you all in 2016," the statement concluded.

This is the third time that Sonisphere has been cancelled in the UK, since first first launching in 2009. In 2012, the festival was scheduled to take place from 6 to 8 July, but was later cancelled in the UK with organisers stating difficulties in organising. However, the festival did go ahead in France, Spain, Poland, Switzerland and Finland. The festival was also cancelled the following year.

Sonisphere Festival has played host to a number of big rock and heavy metal bands including Metallica, Iron Maiden, Slipknot, Alice in Chains, Limp Bizkit and others.