Download Festival 2024: The weather and impolite revellers - what Reddit is saying about this year's event

• Download Festival 2024 took place over the weekend of June 14 to June 16 2024.
• This year’s event however seemed to be marred once again by the weather and muddy conditions
• Attendees on Reddit have now shared the best and worst experiences of the festival this year

So that was Download Festival for another year, with the post-festival blues setting in now we’re all back at work.

This year’s event, headlined by Queens of the Stone Age, Fall Out Boy and Avenged Sevenfold, once again saw large crowds descend upon Castle Donington for four days of the best of metal, punk, alternative and all those other fringe genres within the rock, metal and alternative sphere.

But for some, this year’s event was marred by several things; at least, according to users of r/DownloadFestival on Reddit, who have shared some of their experiences, good and bad. It’s the weather that seems top on everyone’s list.

Some of those who posted on the megathread even admitted that they didn’t stay the entire festival owing to the onslaught of the weather conditions, echoing the Download Festival that took place in 2016 where videos were shared showing torrents of water flowing through parts of the festival’s campsite.

“Managed to last until after Sum 41. Final straw for me was trudging through that mire to the right of the apex only to find the drinking water was no longer there. I was freaking hot and covered in s**te. That was the final FU,” wrote one Redditor, while another commented, “Yup we also ducked out Saturday afternoon!” 

“The long wait in the rain to get in really set the mood for, f**k this I wanna go home but I was already so tired and achy from the day before that we could only manage to sit down and then it didn't feel worth being there to only feel miserable.

“Sad I missed a lot of bands I went for, especially Bowling for Soup but I think I would have had a meltdown if one more person pushed me or I fell in the mud or something.”

Politeness at this year’s festival also was at a minimum with some revellers, with longstanding Download Festival patrons putting the “d**khead* element at this year’s event, which involved shoving through crowds and “a lack of decency,” down to the amount of day ticket holders - and the rise of “screamo” on TikTok as of late.

Download Festival also put chairs at the main stage which caused the ire of some festival attendees, who felt that space was at a premium at this year’s event: “Chairs at the main stage, this has got to be addressed there's far too many, thousands of people funnelled onto the muddy two man wide concrete path because of 65 rows of chairs.”

There was also the issue that due to situations completely out of the organiser’s control, the line-up changed on the fly, leading to some bands being cancelled after being moved and others, in the case of BABYMETAL, having to cut their set short due to concerns about the weather. 

But some revellers did claim there was a “lack” of security on some days, while other days they said there was a lack of volunteers to help.

“Security on Friday was ridiculous, took us 45 minutes to pass, missed Hanabie because of it,” wrote one Redditor, while another commented “No crew, no volunteers, no security other than at the entrance. Never spotted any part of Download Crew aside from the stage barricades and entrances.”

Other festival-goers, though, cited that there were ”at least 1,100 officers on-site”, including dog units and suggested that given the large size of the main arena perhaps they were there, but not seen - with some even suggesting the use of plainclothes officers akin to those that were “apparently” at Slam Dunk Festival.

However, there were some positive comments on the mega-thread, with many praising the help of the welfare tents on the festival site. “Shout out to the Welfare team in Purple Camp. I won’t go into too many details because the dude is probably already feeling really down but somebody in distress on the verge of hyperventilating who was the most drunk I have ever seen anybody stumbled into our camp at about 6.30am.

“Their behaviour was erratic to the point of being a little unnerving but welfare were absolutely fantastic trying to get him sorted out and calming him down.”

Others commended Download Festivals’ welfare workers for an incident involving bouts of food poisoning too: “I had food poisoning Saturday morning [...] Welfare were wonderful, mentioned they’d had tons of cases of poisoning [...] so it must’ve been really bad for it this year.”

We contacted Download Festival for comment.

Were you at this year’s Download Festival and had similar experiences to those shared on Reddit? We’d love to hear from you - feel free to comment down below or drop an email to [email protected].