Download Festival 2023 marks the 20th anniversary of the festival!
Sorry, lets back up a bit and start at the beginning: What is Download Festival?
Download Festival is a rock and metal festival held at Donington Park in Derby every year since 2003.
Over the years it has moved from being a 2-day, to a 3-day festival, and this year marks 4 full days of music.
Download is my annual festival destination, and so in this blog post, I just wanted to talk about it; the history and some notable events from the festivals’ history.
History and origin
Download Festival didn’t just burst onto the scene fully formed of course, it is the spiritual successor to the Monsters of Rock festival.
Monsters of Rock was a 1-day festival which took place at the same place from 1980 to 1996.
Except for 1989 and 1993, as the festival took those years off.
In 1989, the festival was cancelled due to an inquest. This was because two attendees were sadly crushed to death in the record-breaking crowd in 1988.
In 1993 the festival was cancelled as the organisers struggled to find a suitable headliners in a time when heavy metal was declining in popularity.
However, Monsters of Rock is remembered today as a fantastic festival and a pioneer for festivals today. Monsters of Rock hosted many huge bands of the time, like Judas Priest, AC/DC and Iron Maiden.
It also hosted some famously bad bands, like parody band Bad News.
Headliners
So far in its 19 years, Download Festival has hosted 56 headliners.
The band to headline the most times? Iron maiden, with 5 headline slots.
The table below shows the number of headline slots for each of the biggest bands, which definitely has some shocks.
| Band | Times headlined |
| Iron Maiden | 5 |
| Linking Park | 4 |
| Slipknot | 4 |
| Metallica | 2 |
| Black Sabbath | 3 |
| System of a Down | 3 |
| Kiss | 3 |
| Def Leppard | 3 |
| Aerosmith | 3 |
However, 2023 will see Bring me the Horizon, Slipknot and Metallica headline the festival, with Metallica headlining twice.
This will mean that both Slipknot and Metallica will equal Iron Maiden, with 5 headline slots each.
If Iron Maiden manages to headline in 2024 though, they will be back on top!
Notable events
Download Festival has seen a lot of interesting events and tests over the years, as they tried to always bring a fun and varied event to the festival goers.
Some were infamous failures while some of these events have turned into festival history.
Zipline
This idea from the 2013 festival was a well-intentioned idea that was great on paper and absolutely disastrous in reality.
The concept was a zipline that would go in front of the main stage. This would them allow the rider to get an amazing view of the stage as well as a fun trip.
What could go wrong?
Well, as well as going across the main stage, the zip line also went ran directly above the main crowd. A crowd who have access to hundreds of empty bottles.
The zipline was not in use for very long before the inevitable happened:
The zip line originally charged for a trip. However, after the slight hiccup (of all riders being pelted mercilessly by plastic bottles), the price shot down and down until it was eventually free for anyone who dared try it.
The festival has not brought back the zipline since. I wonder why.
Filling in
Musicians are only human, and sometimes they have an unforeseen circumstance that means they cannot perform.
In 2004, the second year of the festival Lars Ulrich had to go to hospital and miss Metallica’s set.
However, Dave Lombardo of Slayer and Joey Jordison of Slipknot filled in and the Metallica set has become legendary since.
This is not the only time that bands have needed other musicians to fill in for them.
In 2006, Jonathan Davis from Korn was taken ill, leaving the band without their singer. However, multiple singers from other bands joined the band to sing songs, including Corey Taylor, Benji Webbe and Matt heafy!
Covid redemption
Download Festival takes place early in June every year. However in 2020, this was only a few months after the Covid-19 outbreak became worldwide news.
While some ignorant fools believed that the festival would still be on, they were soon proved very wrong.
Download Festival 2020 was the first time the festival didn’t take place since 2003, and it was devastating.
It was cancelled again in 2021 to everyone’s distress.
But then, a shimmer of hope: The Event Research Programme.
This was a scheme to see how viable large-scale events could be amidst the continuing pandemic of the Coronavirus.
The Events Research Programme (ERP) aims to examine the risk of transmission of COVID-19 from attendance at events and explore ways to enable people to attend a range of events safely.
Events Research Programme
Several events were allowed to go ahead as part of the scheme, like the World Snooker Championships, the British Grand Prix and Latitude festival.
The Download Festival Pilot was a smaller-scale event than usual, with a maximum capacity of just 10,000.
It hosted UK bands, being headlined by Frank Carter & The Rattlesnakes, Enter Shikari and Bullet for my Valentine.
The festival was a success, from the festival attendees point of view, but also from a scientific point of view.
The results of the scheme were that large scale events could continue across the nation, providing that adequate precautions were taken.
I was not able to attend the pilot sadly, but a friend, Serena did, and her Vlog of it shows that despite the circumstances, the festival was a hit and the attendees had a great time!
Wrap Up
In its 20 years, Download Festival has had some issues and some downturns, but nothing compared to it’s successes.
Download Festival has built up its reputation and fanbase so much that the 2023 festival actually sold out for the first time since 2012.
With 4 days of music, some amazing headliners, and a very packed house, the festival promises to be a weekend for the history books.
I just hope they’re already working on making the 2024 festival even bigger!
