Wacken Open Air (W:O:A) is one of the leading summer open air heavy metal music festivals. It takes place annually in a small town in northern Germany. It attracts all kinds of metal music fans, such as fans of black metal, death metal, power metal, thrash metal, gothic metal and folk metal, from around the world. The 2009 edition set a sales record; it sold out on December 30 2008. All 70,000 tickets were sold over 200 days before the opening of the festival.