Download Festival
Download Festival is an open-air rock and metal festival held each June since 2003 at Donington Park in Leicestershire, England. It is the United Kingdom's largest rock festival, with more than 100 bands playing on several stages and 75,000–80,000 attendees in recent years. The site covers around and includes a large 'village' area with stalls, bars and entertainment. It surrounds Donington racetrack and is beside East Midlands Airport. Between 2016 and 2022 it was held in multiple locations as well as Donington: this included Paris, Madrid, Hockenheimring, Sydney and Melbourne.
Download was created by Andy Copping as a successor to Monsters of Rock, which had been held at Donington until 1996. Download has hosted some of the biggest rock and metal bands. It is similar to the nearby Bloodstock Festival, but Download is much larger and has a broader range of genres as well as more mainstream acts.
History
The Download Festival was conceived as a follow-up to the Monsters of Rock festivals which had been held at the Donington Park circuit between 1980 and 1996. The first Download Festival was created by Stuart Galbraith and co-booked by Andy Copping in 2003 in the same location. Download was initially a two-day event, expanding to three days in 2005.The name Download was chosen for the festival for two reasons. Downloading was a dirty word in the music industry at the time, due to file sharing, and rock is seen as a rebellious genre of music. Download festivals were meant to be Monsters of Rock festivals for the 21st century, also having the internet provide connectivity with its audience.
The 2003 festival tickets included a code that allowed festival-goers to download tracks from bands that had performed. Although this feature was discontinued in later years, the festival organizers have cultivated an online community through the Download Festival Forums. Originally a platform for fans and critics to share their views, the forums have become an integral part of the festival, with regular contributions from festival director John Probyn and promoter Andy Copping. They also facilitate face-to-face feedback through Fan Forum meetings and organize events such as the Boardie BBQ, the Boardie Takeover night, football tournaments, and a pub quiz for R.I.P. campers who arrive on Wednesday night.
When Download began, it took place on the Donington Park circuit infield as had Monsters of Rock. However, in 2008 developments for Formula One meant that the infield was no longer suitable as a festival site. The festival moved to the "Sunday Markets" site to the west of the circuit. Although adequate, numbers were limited and the location of the campsite meant that getting from tents to the arena was quite a hike. 2009 saw the arena move to a much more suitable location to the south of the circuit and has remained there every year since. In 2019 the capacity was 111,000.
Security for the festival has constantly been undertaken by professional crowd management specialists Specialized Security, although the campsite area has had various contractors throughout.
From 2009 to 2019 and returning in 2021, there has been on-site radio broadcasting from Rock Radio on 87.7FM. This RSL broadcast has aired music from festival bands, interviews and news to the festival site and the surrounding area, with the signal reaching as far as Nottingham.
The ''Download Dog''
The Download Dog is the official mascot of the Download Festival and appears on a wide range of material related to the festival, such as tickets, stage banners, merchandise, marketing, and the official Download website.Overview by year
2003
The first Download was held on 31 May – 1 June 2003. The original headliners were Iron Maiden and Limp Bizkit, although the latter pulled out and were replaced by Audioslave. Metallica attempted to step in as headliners, but were unable to do so, owing to headlining that year's Reading and Leeds Festivals. Instead, having performed an exclusive club show in London the night before, they played an unannounced "secret slot" in the afternoon on the second stage, with no soundcheck. "Sunday belonged to Metallica," wrote Mick Middles in Classic Rock. "At 3.15 the band were fired into the heart of the festival. Before me, a nonplussed, earplugged infant was held aloft. Somehow it seemed historical. Debuting selections from St. Anger, Metallica swept into a 90-minute frenzy so irresistible that even the Hells Angels were seen clapping in wholehearted appreciation at the end. The coup was complete."Chevelle were scheduled to play the Scuzz stage on Sunday but pulled out at the last minute. Instruction, playing their second set of the festival, stepped in as the replacements.
2004
Donington
The 2004 edition of the festival was held on 5–6 June. Another stage was added to the festival, bringing the total to three. Seventy-two bands played over the two days. The 2004 event was also notable for several last minute hitches. First, SOiL got lost on the way to Donington and missed their main stage appearance on Saturday. Static-X missed their slot due to a bus breakdown. On Sunday, Slayer arrived on time, but their equipment did not, leading to a slot change from the middle of the afternoon on the main stage to a later slot on the second stage. Slayer were replaced on the main stage by Damageplan, who were scheduled to play the second stage. Their setlist ended with a rendition of Damageplan founders Vinnie Paul and Dimebag Darrell's most recognisable song from Pantera, "Walk."The biggest news came from the headliners Metallica, when Lars Ulrich was rushed to hospital. Taking to the stage an hour and a half late, James Hetfield explained the situation with Ulrich and the show then began with Slayer drummer Dave Lombardo playing on "Battery" and "The Four Horsemen." Slipknot's Joey Jordison played the rest of the set apart from Fade to Black which was played by Metallica's drum technician, Flemming Larsen.
The full line-up included:
Scotland
In June 2004 a two-day Download Festival was held on Glasgow Green, several days before the Donington event. This had a limited line up with only nine bands performing over a two-day period. The bands which did play included the headliners, Metallica and Linkin Park. Download Scotland also saw an appearance from the Welsh rock band Lostprophets who did not perform at Donington.Acts which also appeared over the two days at Download Scotland were Korn, Slipknot, Iggy and the Stooges, Machine Head, the Distillers and HIM.
The running order went as follows:
| Wednesday 2 June | Thursday 3 June |
Metallica Slipknot Korn HIM | Linkin Park Lostprophets Iggy and the Stooges The Distillers Machine Head |
2005
Download 2005 was held again at Donington Park, on 10–12 June 2005. This festival was different from previous years as the Saturday was officially dubbed Ozzfest 2005, as well as an "Indie day" on the first day of the festival.Billy Idol performed on the Snickers stage on the Friday night, his first UK gig after a lengthy hiatus, performing songs such as White Wedding, Rebel Yell and a cover version of Van Halen's anthem, Jump.
Feeder's frontman Grant Nicholas was so relieved the band had won the crowd over, he decided to smash his green Fender Jazzmaster guitar after "Descend" was performed. He later said that he regretted it, but also said he kept the neck and the tremeloes, and might use what was left to make a new guitar. In a July 2010 interview with Kerrang!, it was suggested to Nicholas that he destroyed the guitar as he was frustrated at trying to win the crowd over, as their music was different from the Download demographic, but claimed himself in reply to this that he "Wanted to do the most rock and roll thing after eventually winning over the crowd". In the same interview, Nicholas said that they were "guinea pigs" at the festival as part of the organisers experiment to make it an alternative festival, but said it was a moment of the band's career he is still proud of.
Lemmy also took to the stage, with former MC5 members, and Gilby Clarke, to perform Back in the USA.
Initially, Bert McCracken of the Used and Gerard Way of My Chemical Romance were asked to perform their cover of Under Pressure by Queen and David Bowie, but the former friends refused the offer to perform the cover as they had recently fallen out.
The official line-up included:
2006
The 2006 Download Festival was held at Donington Park, England on 9–11 June. The headlining acts have sales of approximately 200–250 million albums between them, more than the entire line up of 2006's V Festival.2006 was the first time the festival was mirrored in the Republic of Ireland, as Download Festival Ireland.
2006 was also by far the warmest year Download has ever had.
During the festival Korn vocalist Jonathan Davis was rushed to hospital. Similar to 2004's Metallica set, Munky, Fieldy and David Silveria arrived and explained to the fans why Davis could not make it and played with guest vocalists Corey Taylor from Slipknot, Dez Fafara from DevilDriver, Jesse Hasek from 10 Years, Benji Webbe from Skindred, M. Shadows from Avenged Sevenfold, and Matt Heafy from Trivium. Lyrics from the song "Blind" were displayed on the screen for Matt Heafy. Metallica played the album Master of Puppets in its entirety in honour of its twentieth anniversary. Guns N' Roses also performed material from the long forthcoming Chinese Democracy album.
Main Stage
The main stage was situated in the centre of the arena with crowd control moving around it, and was the largest of all three stages, the safety barriers used at this stage were in a T shape so as to avoid crowd crush in the middle. The stage was open-air and named in honour of the 25th anniversary of Kerrang! magazine. Down played an unannounced set on Saturday ; opening up the Main Stage.
Snickers Stage
The Snickers Stage was situated in a tent, behind the main stage and was the second largest stage at the festival. Access to the stage was via a one-way system which attempted to spread people around the site, rather than all attempting to push through a rather small space.
Soilwork were scheduled to play on Sunday, but were replaced by DevilDriver.
Gibson/Myspace Stage
The Myspace stage was the smallest of the three and under a smaller tent. It was positioned across from the front of the main stage.