WACKEN, Germany — Two senior citizens disappeared from their rural retirement home in northern Germany Friday and were later found with thousands of headbangers at a heavy metal music festival in Wacken, according to news reports.
The nursing home alerted police when staff discovered the elderly men missing from their home, in Dithmarscher, according to German broadcaster Deutsche Wells.
It turns out the men were located early Saturday morning about 25 miles away, near Hamburg, at Wacken Open Air, a four-day festival billed as the largest heavy metal gathering in the world.
TRENDING STORIES:
The men were found "disoriented and dazed" around 3 a.m. and were taken to the medical tent, Deutsche Wells reported, but they didn't want to leave the concert.
"They obviously liked the metal festival," a police spokesperson told another German media outlet.
The men were returned to their home shortly after police found them.
According to the festival's Facebook page, Wacken Open Air, which first started in 1990, calls itself "the Metal Mecca" and attracts around 75,000 headbangers every year. Last year, fans from 80 different countries converged on Wacken, according to the site for the four-day event.
Cox Media Group
:quality(70)/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/cmg/UHQLSPFL55G2XILUPW5LZOWB3Y.jpg)
:quality(70)/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/cmg/EQMWF7HLRJAHFACPG6PWM2Y5VA.jpeg)
:quality(70)/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/cmg/GBFBFNOW32U2S6E32AAJ4RIWIU.jpg)
:quality(70)/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/cmg/2LQQTRQHMREGVPIRVOZF2XBXX4.jpeg)
:quality(70)/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/cmg/ZFYX3G4ZMNCXNM4JWU6V3JVZWM.jpg)