Sick New World Sideshows Bring Mastodon, Poison The Well and More to Vegas

The night before Sick New World takes over the Las Vegas Festival Grounds, three sideshows are turning the Strip into its own mini festival. Mastodon, Poison The Well, P.O.D. and a stacked supporting cast are all playing intimate Vegas venues on April 24th, and honestly, some of these lineups rival the main event.

If you were already planning to fly in for the festival on April 25th, you now have every reason to show up a day early.

The Sideshows

All three shows land on the same night, April 24th, so you're going to have to pick your lane. Here's what's on the table.

Mastodon, Melvins & Flatwounds at The Chelsea at The Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas. This is the one that jumps off the page. Mastodon in a 4,000-cap room is a rare opportunity. The Chelsea is a gorgeous venue and seeing a band this heavy in a space that intimate is going to hit different. Add Melvins as direct support, a band that's been putting out records and destroying stages for over four decades, and this becomes arguably the best bill of the three.

Poison The Well, Terror, Pain Of Truth & End It at House Of Blues. This is the hardcore bill and it's not messing around. Poison The Well headlining with Terror, Pain Of Truth and End It? That room is going to be chaos in the best possible way. If you know, you know.

P.O.D., Alien Ant Farm, Snot & Teenwolf at Ayu DayClub. This is pure early-2000s nostalgia wrapped in a Vegas pool party setting. P.O.D. and Alien Ant Farm on the same bill is a time machine back to TRL-era rock, and throwing Snot into the mix gives it some real edge.

Where Mastodon Is At Right Now

I'll be real, Mastodon is in an interesting chapter right now. Their last studio album, Hushed and Grim, dropped in October 2021 as a sprawling 86-minute double album on Reprise Records. It was massive, heavy, and deeply personal. Since then, guitarist Brent Hinds departed the band in March 2025, and the remaining members, Troy Sanders, Bill Kelliher and Brann Dailor, have been working on finding a replacement while writing new material. Seeing them in a room like The Chelsea right now feels like catching a band in transition, and those shows tend to carry a different kind of energy.

Sick New World's Comeback

Worth noting that Sick New World 2026 is a comeback year. The 2025 edition was canceled, and organizers took the time to regroup before bringing it back. This year's festival hits Las Vegas on April 25th with System of a Down and Korn co-headlining, plus Bring Me the Horizon, Ministry, AFI, Danny Elfman, Acid Bath, Evanescence, Underoath and a ton more. A second date is also set for Fort Worth, TX on October 24th.

These sideshows have been part of the Sick New World experience in past years, spreading the weekend out across intimate rooms along the Strip. It gives the whole thing a proper festival weekend feel instead of just a single day event. Smart move bringing them back.

Tickets

If you already have a festival ticket, check your email. You'll get a presale code before the presale goes live on March 18th at 12:00pm PST. General public on-sale starts Friday, March 20th at 10:00am local time.

Grab sideshow tickets at Ticketmaster and festival tickets at sicknewworldfest.com.

These rooms will sell out. Don't sit on it.

Cover photo courtesy of Ticketmaster