Castle Party 2026 unveils full timetable for four days at Bolków Castle
Castle Party has revealed the full timetable for its 2026 edition, set to take place from 16 to 19 July at Bolków Castle, Poland, and the shape of this year’s festival already looks both broad and unusually coherent. Founded in 1994, Castle Party has long held a singular place within the Central European dark alternative landscape: not simply as a festival, but as a seasonal meeting point for gothic rock, darkwave, EBM, industrial, ritual, post-punk, and more esoteric edges of the scene. The new schedule confirms a weekend built with real internal rhythm rather than random accumulation.
Castle Party 2026 line-up
Thursday functions as a proper opening descent on the Park Stage, with Merciful Nuns, A Projection, Denuit, Mayflower Madame, After The Sin, and Meluzyna setting the tone. It is a strong first night: gothic gravity, post-punk tension, and nocturnal atmosphere without unnecessary overstatement.
Friday splits its force between the Castle Stage and Park Stage in a way that feels especially dynamic. On the main stage, VNV Nation, Diary of Dreams, Hocico, Empathy Test, Rotersand, She Pleasures Herself, and The Last Digital Angel create a line running from established electronic headliners through darker emotional textures into sharper club-oriented energy. Over on the Park Stage, the afterparty sequence pushes into heavier and more ceremonial terrain with Sierra Veins for the night show, alongside Wolvennest, Wyatt E, The Devil’s Trade, On All Fours, Thy Worshiper, and Wolfpack Heading Nowhere. There is also a fire show at 22:00.
Saturday may be the most dramatically curved day of the festival. Moonspell headline the Castle Stage, joined by Tribulation, The 3rd and the Mortal, Dawn of Ashes, Long Night, The Silverblack, and Her Own World. It is a bill that leans into gothic metal, dark theatricality, and emotional density without becoming monotonous. The Park Stage follows with Hybryds, This Morn’ Omina, Xotox, In Slaughter Natives, The Allegorist, and Infamis Tenebre, giving the night a more ritual, industrial, and experimental body. Again, the fire show is scheduled for 22:00.
Sunday closes with a different kind of momentum. On the Castle Stage, SKÁLD, Cold Cave, Traitrs, Rue Oberkampf, Horskh, White Ritual, and Agonised Too offer one of the most interesting stylistic arcs of the weekend, moving from ritual and mythic grandeur through cold modern darkwave and post-punk into sharper electronic and industrial edges. The Park Stage afterparty continues with Extize as the night show, plus Rein, Unter Null, Mortes, Autoscopy, and Death by Love, giving the final stretch a more volatile, club-driven pulse.
What the timetable makes clear is that Castle Party 2026 is not relying on one dominant aesthetic. Instead, it is building contrast intelligently: grandeur and abrasion, scene legends and newer names, body music and ritual ambient, dark rock atmosphere and electronic velocity. That balance has always been one of Castle Party’s deeper strengths, and this year’s running order seems keenly aware of it.
Official timetable and festival information: https://castleparty.com
Based in Wrocław, I work as a music journalist and photographer covering electro, industrial, EBM, gothic, and darkwave. My work includes features and live coverage, as well as concert, portrait, promo, and theater photography. What interests me most is the connection between artistic intention, what the work communicates, and what unfolds live on stage, all in pursuit of the bigger picture behind the music.
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