Britain’s largest heavy metal festival Download is set to become even bigger, with organisers announcing today that next year’s edition will stretch over four days for the first time. Next year’s event will take place from June 8 to June 11 2023 at its regular home in Donnington Park. The expansion will coincide with its 20th-anniversary celebrations.
When the festival was first launched in 2003, ironically one of the headliners was the same as this year, Iron Maiden with the other being Audioslave and the festival was held for just two days. This continued for two years before it was then decided to turn it into a three-day festival in 2005, with headliners Feeder, Black Sabbath and System of a Down.
This year’s 2022 edition wrapped up last weekend (June 12). It featured headline sets from Kiss, Biffy Clyro and the aforementioned Iron Maiden with the likes of Skindred, Shinedown, Steel Panther, The Darkness, Myles Kennedy, Volbeat, Monster Truck, Airbourne and Wayward Sons also on the weekend bill. Due to the coronavirus pandemic, it was the first full-scale Download in three years, with last year seeing a smaller-scale ‘pilot’ event. Festival organisers shared the news via social media after celebrating the end of this year’s festival.
WHAT A WEEKEND! Our first full scale Download in 3 years was one for the history books
Are you ready to do it all again?
Download 20th Anniversary | 4 days | 8th – 11th June 2023
Limited Early Bird tickets on sale now at this years price https://t.co/hTnmT5RpM8 pic.twitter.com/K8wh6p1cu7
— Download Festival (@DownloadFest) June 13, 2022
In an interview with NME in April, the festival’s booker Andy Copping said that next year’s headliners have already been booked. “It’s the first time I’ve booked all the headliners in advance ahead of the prior year’s event. That news will come out not too long after this year’s festival, hopefully, we’re way, way down the line – because next year is essentially our 20th year so we wanted to do something a little bit special. All I can say is that it will be very, very exciting.”
Fans will surely be eagerly awaiting announcements for headliners and any forthcoming news about Download and what is to come for the 20th anniversary. For those who cannot wait to find out what the line-up could be you can already purchase tickets for next year from the Download website.
