The band is also rumored to be headlining the return of Ozzfest at Villa Park next year
Slipknot appear to be preparing for something massive in 2027.
After surprise releasing their new single “Arsenal” earlier this month, the masked metal titans have launched an elaborate mystery campaign in recent days, with cryptic posters appearing in cities across multiple continents while equally mysterious teasers have surfaced online. Although Slipknot have yet to officially announce a 2027 tour, the locations of the posters, a newly launched website, and hidden clues buried within its imagery have fueled widespread speculation that a major world tour announcement could be coming on Monday, September 28. Perhaps the most intriguing clue is one discovered within the website itself: several of the mysterious image files reportedly end with “2027,” strongly suggesting that whatever Slipknot are preparing is connected to next year.
The campaign began gaining attention around September 21, when fans started discovering ominous red Slipknot posters in major cities. Each advertisement is dominated by the band’s instantly recognizable Tribal “S” logo and identifies the city where the poster appears, but provides almost no explanation. Sightings have been reported in Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York, Chicago, Houston, Hershey, Pennsylvania, and Washington, D.C., while the campaign has also extended outside the United States. Posters have surfaced in Toronto, Mexico City, Bogotá, Buenos Aires and Santiago, with additional advertisements subsequently appearing in London. The sheer geographical spread is one of the biggest reasons fans believe Slipknot are teasing a large-scale international tour rather than a single concert, festival appearance or isolated release.
Every poster points fans toward the same mysterious destination: Slipknot’s newly created “Unlock” website. The landing page asks visitors to submit information including their email address, first name, city and ZIP code, without initially explaining exactly what is being unlocked. Once registered, visitors are taken to another page featuring Slipknot’s “S” logo engulfed in flames alongside the numbers “09” and “28.” The most obvious interpretation is September 28, 2026 — the Monday immediately following the campaign — making that date the likely reveal point for whatever the band has planned. A separate number displayed on the page has apparently continued increasing since the website launched and may represent the number of people who have registered.
Slipknot have filled the page with additional details for fans to decipher. Playing underneath the flaming logo is “Insert Coin,” the eerie introductory track from the band’s 2019 album We Are Not Your Kind. More importantly, brief black-and-white images periodically flash across the website. Nu Metal Agenda isolated three of those images and reported that the filenames for all three end in “2027.” While that doesn’t prove a tour is coming, it provides the clearest indication yet that Slipknot’s current campaign is building toward something planned for next year. With the physical advertisements specifically identifying individual cities across the United States, Canada, Mexico, Colombia, Argentina, Chile and the UK, a 2027 international touring campaign has become the leading theory.
The mystery has also been amplified through social media. Photos of the posters have quickly spread through Slipknot fan accounts and online communities, while Knotfest itself shared the campaign and drew attention to the mysterious website. Fan-run Slipknot accounts in Mexico, Brazil, Chile and elsewhere have circulated images and videos of the advertisements, helping turn what initially appeared to be isolated posters into evidence of a coordinated international rollout. Knotfest reported that the Tribal “S” had been spotted in destinations throughout North America and the UK, while NME documented fans sharing sightings from a growing list of cities. Rather than immediately explaining the campaign, the Slipknot camp has allowed the imagery, website and social-media activity to do the talking, encouraging fans to piece the clues together themselves.
The timing is particularly interesting because Slipknot have only recently entered another new chapter. Earlier in September, the band unexpectedly released the standalone single “Arsenal,” their first new song in roughly three years. The track features drummer Eloy Casagrande, who joined Slipknot in 2024, and arrived amid another period of personnel changes for the group. Guitarist Jim Root subsequently made clear that “Arsenal” is not the first single from Slipknot’s forthcoming eighth studio album. Root explained that it was a song the group could finish sooner while continuing work on the larger record, and confirmed that it will not appear on the album. The band has been recording new material with producer Matt Wallace, known for his work with Faith No More, while the follow-up to 2022’s The End, So Far remains in progress.
That distinction makes the current campaign even more intriguing. If the September 28 reveal were simply an announcement of the new album, the city-specific posters would be an unusually tour-oriented way of promoting it. Conversely, placing advertisements bearing the names of individual cities is a familiar method of teasing upcoming concerts before formally revealing dates and venues. Reports have therefore increasingly centered on the possibility that Slipknot will announce either a 2027 tour or multiple regional touring legs. At this point, however, no dates, venues, supporting acts or ticket information have officially been revealed, and even the tour itself remains unconfirmed. The evidence strongly points toward a 2027 project with an international component, but the exact nature of that project remains deliberately concealed.
There could also be a larger strategy at work. Slipknot’s eighth studio album is still being recorded, and Shawn “Clown” Crahan recently explained that the band has not even finalized the masks and outfits associated with its next album cycle. While discussing the video for “Arsenal,” Crahan said it was still “too early” to settle on those designs and stressed that he did not want Slipknot simply recycling imagery from previous eras. He also described the video’s deliberately confusing presentation as something connected to ideas that will receive greater focus in the future. Combined with the unfinished album, the new song and the latest teaser campaign, it raises the possibility that 2027 could mark the beginning of an entirely new Slipknot era rather than merely another run of concerts.
Slipknot have not mounted a major touring campaign since their 2025 performances, which included a European festival run and their July 19 appearance at Inkcarceration in Mansfield, Ohio. Since then, attention has increasingly shifted toward the next album and the changing makeup of the band. A 2027 tour would therefore represent Slipknot’s first major return to the road after a significant break and could potentially coincide with the eventual release of their eighth studio album. Whether that means a new Knotfest Roadshow, arena and amphitheater dates, international stadium-scale shows or some combination remains unknown.
For now, all roads lead to September 28. The combination of city-specific posters, the worldwide scope of the campaign, the “09/28” countdown imagery, the hidden “2027” filenames and Slipknot’s deliberate online teasing has created a substantial trail of clues. Nothing officially confirms a 2027 world tour yet, but the campaign has clearly been designed to make fans look toward next year — and toward the cities where those mysterious red posters have appeared. If the most popular interpretation proves correct, Slipknot could be just days away from revealing their return to the road and the next major chapter in the band’s history.