The Line-up For Download 20th Anniversary Announced; We Wanna Fly To The UK Now

8 November 2022 | 10:21 am | Mary Varvaris
Originally Appeared In

The biggest rock and metal festival in the UK is bigger than ever.

We are FLOORED by this line-up; it is MASSIVE.

Download Festival is celebrating its 20th anniversary at Donington Park for a four-night special edition from 8 — 11 June 2023.

Headlined by Bring Me The Horizon, Slipknot, and Metallica, the latter will perform two completely unique sets with no repeats on Thursday and Saturday nights. What kind of deep cuts will UK fans witness?!

Over 60 bands have been revealed for the first line-up announcement. 

Also appearing at the festival will be Australia's own biggest metal band Parkway Drive and the metalcore group Polaris; Architects, Evanescence make their Download debut; Disturbed, Placebo, Ghost, City And Colour's main band Alexisonfire; electronic rock icons Pendulum, symphonic metallers Within Temptation, Polish extreme metal band Behemoth, Belgian rockers Brutus, I Prevail, Lorna Shore, Nova Twins, Soul Glo - who released the next Shape Of Punk To Come earlier this year, the reunited Welsh band The Blackout, and many more.

We said it was huge, didn't we?

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The Download pre-sale opens at 9 pm Tuesday, 8 November UK time - that's 8 am AEST tomorrow, Wednesday, 9 November. Sign up for the mailing list here. Can we book flights now?

The second Download Festival Australia was due to occur in March 2020; we all know why it was cancelled. We haven't heard if the event will roll back to Australia any time soon, but here's hoping. 

The inaugural Download happened in Australia in 2019. It proved why this country needs heavy music festivals: For all the negative headlines, online debate and protests surrounding the future of music festivals in NSW, this event was a timely reminder of the community feel that is the lifeblood of these events. Hopefully, this won't be the last instalment of Download in Sydney. 

Check out the full Download 2023 line-up below.