Download Festival 2015 took place between 12th and 14th June 2015, with the campsite open from Wednesday 10th.
The headliners were:
- Slipknot
- Muse
- Kiss
This was a historic year for me, as it was the first time I went to a Music Festival by myself.
Everyone I normally went to festivals with was either busy, poor or pregnant at the time.
Here I am in the village at Download Festival 2015, looking pretty happy!
This face is a lie.
I had an absolutely miserable time at this festival!
I also made this into a video a few years ago, which you can see here.
Camp Loner
As I said, I was going on my own. So I decided to join ‘Camp Loner’, a specific group for people going on their own.
Originally just a term people used when going on their own.
“Everyone’s busy, so this year I’ll be just be going camp loner”
Camp Loner is now a real part of the festival, with the official group being in its 12th year at Download Festival 2020, and having a reserved camping spot for the group.
The mission of the group is to provide a place to make friends and hang out with other people who went on their own.
I also used the Camp Loner Facebook group to find a car journey buddy. To help share the petrol costs and make a new friend before the festival even started.
I was living in Newcastle at the time, and I picked up my car buddy in York for the drive down to Donington.
First off, me and my journey buddy didn’t exactly click.
He was very into Slipknot, and refused to listen to any other music for the journey.
He was nice enough, but we didn’t immediately become BFFs. Though I am probably at fault for expecting that to just happen.
The Festival
I had a miserable time in Camp Loner. The first day (Wednesday) I chatted to the people camped around me, and we all seemed to get on okay.
However, on the second day we realised that we actually had nothing in common and so we stopped hanging out.
I wont go into too much detail here but suffice to say that it wasn’t a great start to my festival.
Now the festival itself actually started okay, I hung out at the cinema tent, watching films and chilling in the sun.
But then it started to rain, and it didn’t stop.
I spent a lot of time hiding from that and generally having a miserable time.
Honestly, my mental health issues were already pretty bad before this, and this festival was going the worst possible way it could have.
I had a miserable time, ran out of money, didn’t make any friends and was generally feeling defeated.
On the Sunday, the very end of the festival, I had no real interest in seeing the headliner, Kiss.
So instead, I opted to see the thrash/punk band, Suicidal Tendencies.
I only really knew about this band from their song ‘Instituionalized‘, from the Matt Hoffman Pro BMX 2 soundtrack.
I just wanted to stand at the back of the tent, listen to that song and then go back to camp and sleep the rest of the festival away.
Then they started to play.
It was loud.
It was heavy.
It was fast.
The entire crowd became a mosh pit. In spite of myself, I got into it and danced the entire set away and had a blast!
I had the absolute best time of my life during that set, and it’s not an exaggeration that they saved my life that day.
Learning Experience
At Download Festival 2015 I experienced the very lowest lows and the very highest highs I have ever experienced.
I wouldn’t do Camp Loner again, it just isn’t for me.
I think you need to be the right kind of person and definitely in the right frame of mind to get the most from it.
However, I felt so energised and pumped up after Suicidal Tendencies set, that I actually left the festival feeling pretty damn good!
My previosu festival was Reading Festival 2013.
My next festival was Download Festival 2016.