Download FestivalReviews 

I had accessibility and I was very impressed by the way the events team handled the crow

Definitely an experience that i needed to have , amazing sound, great line-up, civilised people, cleaner toilets than expected, from previous reviews, but some of the thing must be improved:
-35000 steps a day - i like walking, but seriously, this was way too much, not to mention, you have to take all your belongings from the car, to the campsite, up and down the hill :) we were just lucky it didn't rain this year
-they didn't allow glass whatsoever, to avoid accidents and crime, but they were showing how much they care for nature, ohh well, i arrive at the festival, to be forced to transfer all my food from glass bowls and containers, into plastic bags, despite my long time decision of not using plastic where possible... its really funny that we were allowed knives....:))
- signs: i believe they can improve the signs around, as we got lost so many times, as we didn't know which way to go... at least stage names and directions...those posts were too vague
As a suggestion, i would hire e-bikes and e-scooters and recharging stations at every corner and a weekend pass for it. i would've been happy to pay extra 30 - 50 pounds to have unlimited access to a bike or scooter from the campsite to the arena, village, etc
On a positive note, it was not at all expensive as many people said before, i mean, as i said, it is an experience, and for a family of 4, we managed to spend £400 on extra food, and everything the children desired, out budget was 500, so win win

Sent a pretty personal and heartfelt message to their customer service team and got some AI generated souless bs back.

Just another collection of loud inconsiderate humans that cause others anxiety and keep them awake on weekdays!!!.
Pretty pathetic that this is allowed surrounded by several towns where people work and children have school the next day. If I played music like this upto 3am the police would come round. Why do they get to do it on a massive scale and distress tens of thousands of households that pay rents,mortgages and council tax.
Hopefully a plane comes down on it one year and does us all a favour 🤞🏻.

I been trying to get tickets for download festival 2026 but it’s all sold out for Friday and Sunday. I spoken to customer support by email. but they being very unhelpful they don’t know best to do. Their is no official fan to fan resale option on Ticketmaster. or official resale page on ticket master or download festival website. why. and if you go onto Facebook to try and get a ticket from someone selling you most probably get scammed. And that not the official resale page I don’t know why people do that download festival 2026 They will not release anymore tickets. This is really unfair. I really wanted to see Linkin park and bloddywood perform on Sunday 14th June 2026 but it’s all sold out and they will not release anymore tickets this is so unfair. Can you release new day tickets like now. Please Thanks the exact same thing happen to me in 2024 and last year and now this year. what pure bad luck

I been trying to get tickets for download festival 2026 but it’s all sold out for Friday and Sunday. I spoken to customer support by email. but they being very unhelpful they don’t know best to do. Their is no official fan to fan resale option on Ticketmaster. or official resale page on ticket master or download festival website. why. and if you go onto Facebook to try and get a ticket from someone selling you most probably get scammed. And that not the official resale page I don’t know why people do that download festival 2026 They will not release anymore tickets. This is really unfair. I really wanted to see Linkin park and bloddywood perform on Sunday 14th June 2026 but it’s all sold out and they will not release anymore tickets this is so unfair. Can you release new day tickets like now. Please Thanks

Accessibility provision is very poor, especially if you are a trader. Transport hub doesn't run on set up day so get ready for a hike uphill and downhill.

Overall I enjoyed the festival of 2025 except for the pre-paid for souvenir ticket and lanyard.
- don't bother buying the souvenir ticket as it's terrible. Looks more like a receipt for the souvenir ticket rather than a possible entrance ticket to the festival. These are sent after the event therefore this isn't unheard of, as I've bought a fair few from concerts in the past through ticketmaster.
- if you're driving in for the weekend and staying offsite, don't bother pre-buying a lanyard because there is a lanyard/programme stand in the main arena that is closer from where you enter. The pre-paid for lanyards are collectable from a merch stand all the way through the festival from the south carpark (after you've already queued to get in) and back out of the arena, to the North of the festival which includes a good walk and the a queue to get back in again from the North entrance. I wasn't best pleased. This was not indicated to me when I purchased it through ticketmaster earlier in the year. I ended up missing the first band I wanted to see.

As my first visit to Download i would like to leave a positive review I'm impressed on the thought that has gone into catering for disabled people and like everyone it's a choice and risk you take there is transport assistance .On all the standing platforms staff helping chairs drink anything that might be needed. the food vans and toilets are prioritised the toilets were clean considering the amount of people going through I've heard a few negative and silly comments on the reviews if it's not suitable as much as we are all equal I feel if you are that negative maybe not the place for you staff have been helpful well done all your hard work and staff much appreciated had a fantastic time .

Warning for all LGBTQ+ people, avoid 2025, they are already attacking trans people over toilets and other issues and doubling down, it is not a safe festival for LGBTQ+ people.

Amazing festival, yes you need to walk a lot, it’s massive, yes if it rains it will be muddy and you will get wet, deal with it

Wtf... download is absolutely brilliant... although security r suspect n brutal 🤣🤣🤣
Asif the rock/metal/punk fraternity would harm a fly without a conscious 🤔

Good music and crowd but the tickets are far too expensive. The drinks options - especially beer - are awful. They have been overtaken by big brands and don't sell anything diverse or local. The showers are a joke. If you pay for an upgrade. you still queue for an hour. Complaints do not get answered. The site itself it poorly planned. Buses to the local town and back are needed. Staff do not know answers to questions when you ask.
(I went in 2022 and 2023 and stopped going afterwards.)

I think sometimes we take for granted the quality of these events but after seeing how bad they can be, I'm reminded of how overall good Download Festival is.

Firstly some of the criticisms on here seem really weird to me, so let me address some of those:
- Rude staff - never have I ever come across rude staff at any Download I have been to (6 of them), mostly quite the opposite.
- Extortionate prices - 2 years ago the pints were £6, so a bit overpriced as every event like this is, but not out of the ordinary.
- Toilets abysmal - They get worse as it goes on and there is no denying it just like all festivals, but it's not that bad. It's definitely cleaner than 10 years ago too.
- 30 minutes walk false advertising as 'close' - it's a festival with a crowd of 80,000 or something in the countryside - precisely how close do you expect to dump your vehicle?
- phone stolen - Download is consistently the lowest crime festival, worlds apart from some of the others.

Anyway, my music experience at Download Festival has always been great overall. Download always has the best lineup of any UK festival in my opinion, Leeds sometimes used to get close and the rest are very hit and miss including Glastonbury. Sound quality is generally great with the exception of one or two bands here and there and a couple of times there have been technical issues. Crowds are hit and miss as probably any festival or artist, but some of the best crowds I've ever been in have been at Download, such as Muse 2015. More recently they've put up big 360 screens further back so even far back you can see what's going on and it still sounds decent, great for chilling with beers!

Safety is generally good, crowd management is good. There's only one time I have ever felt unsafe and that was certain parts of Linkin Park 2014 where the crowd got a bit squashy, although nothing too serious, usually when a pit was forming. In fact, one year while drunk I decided to go on a big walk around the campsites alone because it felt so safe and chatted to a few randomers. Wouldn't catch me doing that even sober in any UK city! I had the experience of Leeds once and the last day was downright lawless, fires, explosions and a gang of criminals thinking about breaking into our tent until I scared them off. Never had any issues like these at Download. To be fair you could say that's more down to the attendees than the organisers.

Food and drink: Food has got better over the years, I remember it being a bit average in 2014 but by 2018 it was really quite good and still is. There's a huge selection of stalls and quality is really good with the odd exception. One time I got a really stale tepid Pizza for £15! Queues are generally reasonable again with a few exceptions. And of course they are a bit overpriced.

My criticisms are as follows
1) Car queues for leaving are unnecessarily bad. There's basically one exit for god knows how many cars and for some reason they were telling no one to let people into the queue to leave which caused a couple of minor road rages and it just doesn't make sense - why does the guy next to the exit have to wait for every single other car to leave?? Just make more exits, simple solution.
2) One year, I think 2016, I noticed there were a bunch of large stones on the ground under the main stage crowd which seemed dangerous to me. They won't let you bring weapons in but when they provide a bunch of large stones to throw you don't really need to? I don't think it's an issue anymore but can't be 100% sure.
3) Lax campsite security. One year we went out and came back in with a bag full of glass spirit bottles which our friend brought. In the big queue at the start it makes sense to search every 5 people or something for speed purposes while still being a deterrent, but this was Friday evening, I think the only reason is because they couldn't be bothered. I also have walked in myself repeatedly without any interest from security.
4) Not enough toilets. Last two times I have been every morning you wake up needing the toilet and remember that you have to stand in the baking sun for 40 minutes while the women's toilets is just straight in and out. Once last time they let men use the women's to reduce this issue, but the rest of the time you just had to suffer it. There is such a clear imbalance there and has been for years and I don't know why they don't fix it.
5) Not enough water dispensers. Between acts you'll again be sat in a queue for ages to get water.

Mistakenly we purchased the wrong kind of tickets (we didn't have camping) so we asked to upgrade if not we would find a hotel. The safe told us of we bought new tickets we would be refunded for the old ones so far now refund and no response via email. Rediculs service I'm £600 out of pocket and simply being ignored. If we wasn't told we would be refunded I would have just got a hotel not purchased more tickets

This year was my first time at Download. The bands I got to see were amazing and performed just how I imagined, if not better, despite the fact there were technical issues ALL weekend. Several bands, including Royal Blood, BabyMetal and Avenged Sevenfold, had to stop mid-show to sort out the issues they were having. I mean, come on.. Who's in charge of that stuff? It's the main stage!! Some others have said the toilets were awful, but in my experience of going to festivals they were actually pretty clean and looked after despite the thousands of people using them.

However.. Organisation was atrocious. Given the weather warnings beforehand, you would have thought there would have been better planning involved to account for the hundreds, if not thousands, of vehicles and foot traffic coming to and from the festival. When leaving, we sat for 2 hours in our vehicles waiting to exit. There was absolutely no sign of any parking attendants, except for right at the exit. They should have been placed further down to help guide people instead of it being a complete free-for-all. Many cars ended up getting stuck in the mud that was constantly being churned up due to lack of boardwalks being put in place to avoid this issue. Then when you eventually start moving and make your way out of general parking, the roads are cordoned off so sat-nav takes you on a completely different route. Often 20-30 minutes longer than it took to arrive, which meant we would get back to our AirBnB incredibly late and feeling a little fed up by the end of it.

Food and drink stalls are of course always overly extortionate and leech off festival-goers for profit, yet the portion sizes and flavour of the food and drinks on offer aren't that great and if you were served it in a restaurant, it's likely you would return it or complain. But I'm not waiting another 25 minutes in a queue just to return something only to be left hungry and thirsty.
Drinks also ran out very quickly. On the final day, it was quite hot and people including myself wanted water or something to rehydrate, but everything was sold out and there was no backup to account for this.

Not to mention, over 500 people came down with food poisoning and 2 stalls were closed because of this. For a festival this well known, I think that's pretty poor that this wasn't noticed or shut down sooner.

The mudslide made it difficult to get around, although I found it quite funny watching everyone squelch through the slip-n-slide like conditions.

All-in-all, the organisation that goes into Download is not on par with the amount of people they know are arriving. I can't even imagine what it was like for the campers (awful, I imagine!)
Download, please do better. We pay hundreds of pounds to attend a festival we want to have a great time at, and when that feeling isn't 100%, it feels like quite a big let down, often with no comments or apologies made.

I have my ticket for next year already, but if it's similar to this year with many acts dropping out due to Barclays (boycott them!!), and whispers of bad organisation, then I'll be re-selling my ticket and will be hugely disappointed.

I am an accessible customer and believe the walking and stands are not considerate of the needs of the increased number of accessible customers.
The avalanche stage needs platformed accessible viewing (multiple tiers) as there was never enough space. The same with the dogtooth stage.
The opus stage viewing platforms were ridiculous, you could not see the live performance and we just had viewing of the screen. If I wanted to watch the screen I’d have stayed at home. The Apex viewing was much better but higher tier platforms would be so much better. I have special needs but still would love to stand occasionally to dance but it felt frowned upon. When coming on to the campsite nobody knew what they were doing and there was no allocation or consideration for people’s needs. I needed urgent access toilets and was allocated a camp space so far away from the toilets and wash facilities. The access to the arena was so much better but the band start times were impossible to stick to when the entry was taking 30 minutes to get through. The buggies and staff driving them were so so helpful and I’m very grateful for all of the help they gave us, it allowed me to be able to save some energy.
We love download and the improvements were noticeable, but a few more changes would be great!

The festival line up since I started going in 2012 for me was the best ever. However none of that outweighs the total lack of care taken to ensure that people were able to enter and exit the arena safely. You didn't need to be Michael Fish to know that this weekend was going to be a total washout and instead of putting down boards to enable people to drive their vehicles in and out, Download prioritise profit over customer care, leaving people stranded and anxious if they were ever going to get out from there. How is it more cost effective to have people ripping up the field which they lease or having people come out in the middle of the night in pick up trucks and tractors to rescue people? I was asked to park at the bottom of the hill. When they tried to tow me out, the tow eye snapped, leaving me to sort out my own breakdown recovery who then couldn't make it there until 7:30 AM. What turned out to be a good weekend turned into a disaster and it all could have been avoided. No boards were put down either for disabled access, leaving people in wheelchairs stuck but download don't care because no matter how many people leave negative reviews stating this, they are safe in the knowledge that people love the music that much, they will keep coming back. Hardly any space to pitch up your tent where Download obviously sell more tickets than what they can safely accommodate, not caring whether customers who pay an awful lot of money have somewhere to sleep. Despite loving the music, I for one will not be spending another penny on their rip off tickets and food but are download bothered? No because they know that there's another sucker out there that will. Avoid, the staffing and customer care has gone right down the drain.

Avoid at all costs !!!!!! This was mine and my fiancés first download and will definitely be our last . I don’t even know where to start . All the bands were a load of rubbish, they must have been scraping the barrel to get this years line up . The 2 main stages are that close together that you can’t make out which band is playing what . The toilets are brutal , so dirty bit that goes without saying as the main people who go to this place are just trampy, dirty people. Hardly any showers so chance of getting one . The food is terrible and very over priced pig swill . The staff are rude, arrogant jobsworths who I had to put in their place several times. Of course none of them have the balls to say anything back to you, they are bullies until you put it on their toes and then they turn into fairies. The mud is that bad that thing to get from place to place is nearly impossible and nothing is done to even try to make it better . You have to park miles away from the entrance and then from your tent to the nearest water or anything like that is a 20 minute walk. This is only a part of it, I could go on for hours , just avoid people and save your hard earned money.

Staff are incredibly rude and less than helpful, campsite is a HSE nightmare with serious injuries occurring all weekend long. Phone was stolen, nothing was done about it. Prices are extortionate. Main stage had no signage or any of the others, toilets abysmal, showers were freezing and didn't realize we all had to be naked together or freeze in a baltic shower. Will never ever be back.