Download Festival is a British Rock Festival held annually at a collection of venues.
- Donnington Park in Leicestershre since 2003
- Paris since 2016
- Parramatta Park in Sydney since 2019
- Flemmington Racecourse in Melbourne since 2018.
It is the most popular British summer Rock and Heavy Metal Festival and has hosted some of the genre’s biggest names including Saxon, Black Sabbath, Metallica, Iron Maiden, Motorhead, Aerosmith, AC/DC, Status Quo, Motley Crue, Journey, Whitesnake, Thin Lizzy and Guns N’Roses to name a few….
The Download Festival was conceived as a follow up to the “Monsters of Rock” Festivals which was held at Donnington Park between 1980 and 1996 and rather than being run as a single day event Download was initially a two-day event expanding to three days in 2005.
When Download began, it took place on the Donington Park circuit infield as had Monsters of Rock. However, in 2008 developments for Formula One meant that the infield was no longer suitable as a festival site. 2008 saw a move to the “Sunday Markets” site to the west of the circuit. Although adequate, numbers were limited and the location of the campsite meant that getting from tents to the arena was quite a hike so in 2009 the arena moved to a much more suitable location to the south of the circuit and has remained there every year since.
The name “Download” was chosen for the festival for two reasons. Downloading was a dirty word in the music industry at the
time, due to file sharing, and rock is seen as a rebellious genre of music, also Download was to be a Monsters of Rock for the 21st century and the internet would provide connectivity with its audience.
The 2003 festival tickets had a code on them, which would allow festival goers to download tracks from bands which had played, this idea was dropped in subsequent years although the festival organizers have nurtured an online community through the Download Festival Forums which Initially acted as a sounding board for the fans (and critics) of the festival. The forums also provide face to face feedback through the Fan Forum meetings (started in 2006) and organise the Boardie BBQ (2006 on) and the Boardie Takeover night (2009), football tournaments and a pub quiz for the R.I.P. campers who arrive on a Wednesday night.
So if you are into your “Heavy Metal” and this Festival is one for you then why not let Sussex Transport provide some “Heavy Metal” of our own in the form of providing you with the right size of truck to successfully transport all of your event equipment in and out of the site at the start and the end of the Festival.
Our diverse “Heavy Metal” fleet include HIABs, Artics, 7.5t, Moffetts, Sprinters and Flatbeds and we can offer a dedicated courier and haulage service to cover a wide variety of services so take a moment to look through our blog page to see some of the well known public events we have been involved with year on year…
Let Sussex Transport be YOUR Heavy Metal Hero!!
Call us now or fill in our transport quote form…
