DOWNLOAD FESTIVAL

For many rock and metal fans, Download is the weekend the rest of the year gets organised around.

• When: June

• Where: Donington Park, Leicestershire

• Founded: 2003

• Type: Outdoor rock and metal festival

• Camping: Yes

• Known for: Huge international headliners, a broad rock and metal line-up, multiple stages and Donington’s long history with heavy music

• Next festival: 9–13 June 2027

• Tickets are available from the Download Festival website.

Every June, thousands make their way back to Donington Park. For some, it’s their first major festival. Others are repeating a journey they’ve made for years. Friends reunite, campsites re-form and, for a few days, an enormous patch of Leicestershire is home to the biggest gathering of rock and metal fans in the country.

Download began in 2003, but Donington’s relationship with heavy music goes back much further. Monsters of Rock made the site famous in the 80s and 90s, and that history still gives Download a sense of place that would be difficult to reproduce somewhere else. Donington is part of Download’s identity.

The scale helps too. Download can put some of the biggest bands in the world at the top of its bill while allowing newer artists to play to far bigger audiences than they’d normally have.

Its line-ups stretch across generations and, more and more, across the boundaries of what people mean when they talk about rock and metal. That can create arguments (or talking points!), but it’s also one of the reasons Download continues to evolve rather than becoming a museum piece.

And then there’s everything that happens away from the stages!

For people camping for the full weekend, Download is like a rocker’s holiday. It’s several days of “going home” to Donington: the walk back to camp, discovering a band you hadn’t planned to see, questionable late-night decisions, the unpredictable weather in Donington’s micro-climate, and the strange mixture of exhaustion and reluctance to leave when it’s all over.

We’ll bring you the announcements and festival news, but we’re just as interested in what they mean once you’re actually there. The site changes, the experience on the ground, the things that work, the things that don’t, and all those little details that can make a huge difference when you’re spending several days in a field.

Whether Download is an annual fixture in your calendar or you’re wondering what you’ve let yourself in for with your first one, you’ll find all of Festpod’s Download coverage here.

Welcome to Donington.