Sick New World is quietly turning its one-day Vegas blowout into more of a weekend affair, sliding a slate of Las Vegas sideshows onto the calendar for the night before the main festival. Set for Friday, April 24, the add-on club gigs give fans a shot at full-length sets from several of the bill's bigger names, spread across the Strip at The Chelsea at The Cosmopolitan, House of Blues at Mandalay Bay and AYU Night Swim at Resorts World.
The main Sick New World event is scheduled for April 25, 2026 at the Las Vegas Festival Grounds, with System of a Down and Korn among the headliners. Official festival pages list a stacked lineup of legacy and contemporary heavy acts across multiple stages, with the 2026 return following last year's canceled edition and a lineup reshuffle, as reported by Consequence.
Strip sideshows announced
On the new sideshow slate, Mastodon is set to team up with the Melvins and Flatwounds at The Chelsea at The Cosmopolitan, while Poison the Well is booked with Terror, Pain of Truth and End It at the House of Blues at Mandalay Bay. Over at Resorts World, AYU Night Swim is slated to host P.O.D. with Alien Ant Farm and Snot with Teenwolf in poolside night-swim slots. Those lineups were detailed by the Las Vegas Review-Journal.
Tickets and where to buy
Tickets for the sideshows are set to go on sale at 10 a.m. Friday via Ticketmaster. Because the gigs are in club and pool venues, capacity will be far smaller than at the outdoor festival, so organizers expect on-sale queues and fast sellouts. Fans are being urged to set alerts on Ticketmaster and keep an eye on band pages for any last-minute additions.
Backstory
Sick New World’s 2026 run comes after an abrupt cancellation in 2025 that led organizers to scale back and regroup, according to industry reporting. Sideshows have often been part of the weekend in past years, giving fans a chance to see acts in more intimate rooms and helping spread crowds along the Strip instead of funneling everyone into a single outdoor site. This year’s sideshow lineup looks like an attempt to recapture that weekend-long buzz even as the core festival remains a one-day event.
For the latest lineup changes, on-sale windows and venue rules, check Sick New World and Ticketmaster. If you are planning to chase sideshows, build in extra travel time between Strip venues and the festival grounds on Saturday.
