Sick New World 2026 First Texas Experience

Sick New World is a one-day festival filled with various rock and nu metal bands who come together to share a day of music. This festival is usually held in Las Vegas, but in 2026 they decided to share the stage with Texas for the first time. On this page I will bring on boots on the ground journalism, as my first festival going experience.

Price Breakdown

For first time festival goers like myself, I thought I would give a price breakdown of the costs it would take to travel to Fort Worth and Sick New World. I stayed at Hilton which was about $150 per night for two nights, and gas costed about $100 to travel to Fort Worth and back to San Marcos. The ticket itself for Sick New World was $300, which I bought a year ago. They do have a layaway plan if that is something future travelers would be interested in.

Bands!

Experience

On Saturday, the traffic was really hectic it took us about an hour to even get to the rideshare dropoff. Once I finally was able to get off and start the long walk to the entrnace I had already missed the first band I wanted to see, which was 'Failure'. To get into the arena, you just had to walk through some metal detectors and scan your wristband. The speedway was super packed and it felt like everyone was jumbled together. Once I finally got to the main area I bolted to my first show which was 'Filter'.

photo of texas motor speedway in dallas
lead singer of Deftones, Chino Moreno, singing close into the mic in a far away shot

Bands I Saw

The first band I was fortunate enough to see was 'Filter' they were on the Blue Stage at 1:30pm. On the Gold Stage, right besides the Blue Stage, was P.O.D. After P.O.D was done with their set I sprinted towards the Spiral Stage for 'Lords of Acid' who came on at 3:05.

Sickest Bands