Acclaimed UK festival Download has announced a number of new acts for their forthcoming 2022 event, which is scheduled to take place at Donington Park, Leicestershire from June 10th to June 12th. Ticket information can be found here, and an up-to-date line-up poster can be seen below.
Perhaps the most exciting of the new additions to the line-up this year is English punk rock outfit Frank Carter & the Rattlesnakes, who will be appearing on the Second Stage on June 10th. The band are replacing The Distillers, who have announced that they are postponing all of their forthcoming European festival appearances, stating on social media: “It is with great regret that The Distillers have been forced to postpone their upcoming European festival appearances and headline tour this June…The band express their sincere apologies to all of the fans and hope to return to Europe to play the headline shows as soon as they can, so please hold onto your tickets.”
Other Second Stage headliners include Airbourne, Megadeth, Mastodon, Steel Panther and The Darkness, and other acts who have recently been announced for the forthcoming festival include Birmingham grindcore pioneers Napalm Death, rock ‘n’ rollers Kris Barras Band, hip-hop group Pengshui and alt-rockers Aniilmalia.
This will mark the second year in a row that Frank Carter & the Rattlesnakes will play at a Download event, having made an appearance at the experimental 2021 “Download Pilot”, which spearheaded the gradual return of camping festivals in the UK following the COVID-19 pandemic, which brought all live music in the UK to a standstill.
Festival Republic boss Melvin Benn recently told NME: “It’s just over 50 days until we open the gates to the campsite, and there are many, many people counting down every single one of those days…Also, it’s been nearly 1,100 days between Tool closing in 2019 and Heriot opening in 2022. That’s definitely too long without this festival.”
In other news regarding the festival, Download recently announced some new site improvements that will take effect this year which will tackle issues regarding inclusivity, accessibility and environmental related problems. “The Village” camping will be moved closer to the Arena, granting easier access to disabled fans, and a number of environmentally friendly camping schemes have been introduced.
Regarding the changes, Benn told NME: “The Download community embraces fans with disabilities probably more than any other festival, I would say…We’ve been listening to fans, and formerly the accessible campsite was a distance away from the campsite village and almost impassable during a wet year, so we’ve redesigned the campsite overall…The two are now much closer together and it’s nearer to the heart of the camping world…The walk from the campsites to the arena is now much shorter than it was before. It was a trek, but it’s much better now.”
You can read more about Download’s site improvements here.
