Five
The late-'90s British boy band with the rap verses, reunited and booked entirely on the strength of the incongruity — 'Everybody Get Up' will, in fact, get everybody up.
Download 2026 Lineup
Download 2026 has already wrapped — but you can still dig through the lineup and find the acts you would have loved.
Donington's 23rd Download — Limp Bizkit, Guns N' Roses and Linkin Park across four stages, plus a Thursday opening night, on the spiritual home ground of British rock.
About Download 2026
Download's 23rd edition brought 113 acts back to Donington Park, the patch of Leicestershire tarmac that has been British rock's spiritual home since Monsters of Rock. Limp Bizkit headlined Friday, Guns N' Roses Saturday, and Linkin Park closed the festival on Sunday. Ticket packages sold out ahead of the weekend.
Beneath the Apex Stage headliners, the bill did what Download does best — running four stages that barely overlap in audience. Trivium, Babymetal, Bad Omens and Ice Nine Kills carried the Apex undercard; Opus had Architects, Mastodon, A Day to Remember, Behemoth and a Tom Morello solo set; Avalanche leaned British and punk-adjacent with Feeder, The All-American Rejects, Hot Milk, Marmozets and Ash; and Dogtooth was the underground stage, with Blood Incantation, Decapitated, Cavalera, Conjurer and Gatecreeper.
Two changes worth knowing about. Static-X were billed to headline Dogtooth on the Sunday but cancelled their entire 2026 run for medical reasons, and Creeper stepped in — their third set of the weekend, which tied them with Corey Taylor for the most sets played at a single Download. Imminence were also announced and pulled out in February. And in the weekend's most Download booking, the German happy-hardcore act Scooter played the Avalanche Stage.
Expect rock, metal, hard rock and alternative rock across 113 acts.
The headliners
- Five — The late-'90s British boy band with the rap verses, reunited and booked entirely on the strength of the incongruity — 'Everybody Get Up' will, in fact, get everybody up.
- Limp Bizkit — Fred Durst's improbable late-career renaissance turned a punchline back into one of the most purely entertaining live acts in rock.
- Guns N' Roses — The classic-lineup reunion long outlasted anyone's expectations, and the three-hour sets still get through most of the canon — Slash solos and all.
- Linkin Park — Reconstituted with Emily Armstrong on co-vocals, playing a catalogue that turned out to be load-bearing for two generations — 'In the End' still detonates.
Up-and-comers to catch early
- Bloodywood — Indian nu-metal with dhol and flute up front — anti-hate lyrics over some of the heaviest grooves going.
- Hot Milk — Manchester co-fronted punk with a genuine chaotic streak and one of the sharper live shows in UK rock.
- Sleep Theory — Memphis alt-metal that has climbed a stage size a year on the strength of the choruses.
- Lake Malice — London electronic-metal duo, all glitch and menace, punching well above a Dogtooth slot.
- Die Spitz — Austin four-piece who swap instruments mid-set and play garage-punk like it might fall apart.
- Conjurer — British sludge with post-metal patience — one of the UK underground's genuine success stories.
Other acts worth planning around
- Linkin Park — Closed the festival, reconstituted with Emily Armstrong on co-vocals.
- Guns N' Roses — The classic-lineup reunion, still getting through most of the canon in three hours.
- Blood Incantation — Denver death metal by way of Tangerine Dream, and the most critically adored band in the genre.
- Mastodon — Atlanta prog-sludge institution with genuinely uncommon musicianship.
- Tom Morello — The Rage guitarist solo — the riffs, the politics, and a rotating cast of guests.
- Scooter — German happy-hardcore on a rock festival's Avalanche Stage; the tonal mismatch was entirely the point.
- Creeper — Played three sets across the weekend after stepping in for the cancelled Static-X on Sunday.
- Five — The late-90s boy band headlined the Thursday opening night, alongside Electric Six and Cancer Bats.
The lineup by day
Thursday 11 June was the opening night; the four main stages ran Friday 12 through Sunday 14 June.
- Thursday, June 11: Five, Electric Six, Cancer Bats
- Friday, June 12: Limp Bizkit, Cypress Hill, Electric Callboy, Pendulum, Hollywood Undead, P.O.D. + 28 more
- Saturday, June 13: Guns N' Roses, Trivium, Babymetal, Black Veil Brides, Landmvrks, South Arcade + 31 more
- Sunday, June 14: Linkin Park, Bad Omens, Ice Nine Kills, The Pretty Reckless, Bloodywood, RØRY + 33 more
Download 2026 lineup FAQ
Who headlined Download 2026?
Limp Bizkit on Friday, Guns N' Roses on Saturday, and Linkin Park closing on Sunday. Five headlined the Thursday opening night.
When and where was Download 2026?
Donington Park in Leicestershire, with the Thursday opening night on 11 June and the three main music days running 12–14 June 2026. It was the 23rd edition.
How many bands played Download 2026?
113 acts across the Apex, Opus, Avalanche and Dogtooth stages, plus the Thursday night bill.
Why did Static-X not play Download 2026?
They cancelled all their 2026 tour dates due to serious medical issues. Creeper were announced as replacements and headlined the Dogtooth Stage on the Sunday.
When is Download 2027?
Download has confirmed 9–13 June 2027 at Donington Park.
More festival lineups
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Electric Six
Detroit's disco-rock absurdists, whose deadpan commitment to the bit has sustained twenty-odd albums — 'Danger! High Voltage' still combusting nightly.
Cancer Bats
Toronto hardcore with a Southern-sludge swing, and a Sabbath covers side project that tells you everything — riffs first, breakdowns close behind.
Limp Bizkit
Fred Durst's improbable late-career renaissance turned a punchline back into one of the most purely entertaining live acts in rock.
Cypress Hill
Three decades of West Coast rap that always sat comfortably on rock bills — B-Real's nasal delivery is its own instrument.
Electric Callboy
German trancecore turned full variety act — day-glo costumes, absurd videos, and breakdowns that genuinely hit, the internet's favorite metal party band.
Pendulum
Australian drum-and-bass played by an actual rock band — the live show is louder and more physical than the records suggest.
Hollywood Undead
Masked LA rap-rock six-piece with six vocalists and a knack for the shout-along that outlives the criticism — critic-proof and pit-approved.
P.O.D.
San Diego's nu-metal survivors, still reggae-inflected and still delivering the two songs everyone came for with full conviction — plus deeper cuts for the faithful.
Scene Queen
Pink-glitter 'bimbocore' — pop-metalcore with a feminist bite, breakdowns in hot pink and lyrics that name names.
Halestorm
Lzzy Hale is one of the great living rock voices, and the band around her has the road miles to match.
Daughtry
Periphery
The band that made djent a genre rather than an onomatopoeia, and then kept writing actual songs inside it — prog-metal with hooks.
Creeper
Southampton's theatrical horror-punk, committed to the concept album and the costume change in equal measure — AFI drama with a British music-hall streak.
Paleface Swiss
Swiss beatdown with a genuinely unsettling vocal performance sitting on top of the chug — Europe's heaviest recent export.
Silent Planet
Caskets
Feeder
Welsh alt-rock lifers with an unreasonable number of songs you'd recognise from British radio in the early 2000s — 'Buck Rogers' just the start.
Story of the Year
Sleep Theory
New-generation alt-metal built on a soulful clean vocal and a very modern low end — the format's next arena act in waiting.
Rain City Drive
Drain
Sunny California hardcore that treats a circle pit as a party rather than a fight — the scene's most reliably grinning live band.
Lakeview
Holywatr
Silly Goose
Native James
Cavalera
Max and Iggor Cavalera revisiting the early Sepultura catalogue they wrote, with all the tribal thrash intact — Brazilian metal history performed by its authors.
Corrosion of Conformity
North Carolina crossover veterans who moved from hardcore into thick Southern sludge and stayed there — Sabbath swing filtered through a punk's impatience.
Band-Maid
Japanese hard rock performed in maid costumes by players good enough that the gimmick stops registering within a song — virtuosic riffs served with a curtsy.
Stampin' Ground
The Primals
Lake Malice
Nasty
Vianova
James and the Cold Gun
Slay Squad
Headwreck
Guns N' Roses
The classic-lineup reunion long outlasted anyone's expectations, and the three-hour sets still get through most of the canon — Slash solos and all.
Trivium
Matt Heafy's Florida four-piece has quietly become one of metal's most technically reliable live bands — 'Ascendancy' to now, no off nights.
Babymetal
J-pop choreography welded to a genuinely serious metal band — a concept that should not work and completely does, with a live show that converts skeptics by the second song.
Black Veil Brides
Andy Biersack's theatrical goth-metal, aged from scene lightning rod into a band that just writes big rock songs — warpaint optional, choruses mandatory.
Landmvrks
South Arcade
Thornhill
Architects
Behemoth
Polish blackened death metal staged like liturgy — corpse paint, fire, and riffs with genuine architectural heft, led by Nergal's decades-long war on the sacred.
Bush
Gavin Rossdale's post-grunge outfit, whose mid-'90s singles have aged into genuine festival-crowd catnip — 'Glycerine' and 'Machinehead' still land like it's 1995.
Set It Off
Theatrical pop-rock with orchestral flourishes and a frontman who can genuinely belt — Broadway instincts at Warped velocity.
Those Damn Crows
We Came as Romans
Melodic metalcore that leans hard on the clean-sung hook, carrying a decade-plus of hard-won catharsis — brotherhood themes made literal.
As Everything Unfolds
Snot
The Wildhearts
Ginger Wildheart's chaotic marriage of Beatles melody and Metallica volume — a genuinely beloved British institution, survived against all odds.
The All-American Rejects
Oklahoma power-pop-punk whose singles are so lodged in the culture that the whole set functions as a singalong — 'Move Along' to 'Dirty Little Secret', wall to wall.
Hot Milk
Manchester co-fronted punk with a genuine chaotic streak and one of the sharper live shows in UK rock right now.
Marmozets
Yorkshire math-rock with Becca Macintyre's extraordinary range on top — angular, unpredictable, and back after a long gap with the wildness intact.
As It Is
Brighton pop-punk that took a hard theatrical turn into emo concept records and never really came back — eyeliner-era drama played completely straight.
Melrose Avenue
Mouth Culture
Die Spitz
Austin's instrument-swapping all-women punk-metal wrecking crew — everyone plays everything, and it all lands at full force.
Nevertel
Frozemode
Blood Incantation
Denver death metal by way of Tangerine Dream — cosmic, patient, and the most critically adored band in the genre.
Decapitated
Polish technical death metal built on groove as much as speed — Vogg's riffing is the whole architecture, precision that still swings.
Elder
Long-form psychedelic stoner rock that abandoned riff-worship for genuine composition somewhere around album three — twenty-minute pieces that earn every bar.
Sweet Savage
Self Deception
Drowning Pool
Texas nu-metal with one absolutely inescapable single and a catalogue heavier than that song suggests — twenty-plus years of riffs behind 'Bodies'.
Return to Dust
Conjurer
British sludge with post-metal patience — grim, dynamic, and one of the UK underground's genuine success stories, crushing without ever turning monotonous.
Lowen
Tailgunner
Tropic Gold
Pussyliquor
Linkin Park
Reconstituted with Emily Armstrong on co-vocals, playing a catalogue that turned out to be load-bearing for two generations — 'In the End' still detonates.
Bad Omens
Noah Sebastian's project drifted from metalcore toward something moodier and far more electronic, and got much bigger for it — 'Just Pretend' made them the scene's biggest crossover story.
Ice Nine Kills
Horror-movie metalcore staged as full theatre — every song a slasher reference, every set closer to a production than a gig.
The Pretty Reckless
Taylor Momsen's blues-heavy hard rock, which stopped being a curiosity roughly four excellent albums ago — the actress asterisk long since retired.
Bloodywood
Indian nu-metal with dhol and flute in the front of the mix — anti-hate lyrics over some of the heaviest grooves going.
RØRY
Kublai Khan TX
Texas hardcore at its most punishing — mosh calls with a message, and a low end that treats subtlety as a character flaw.
Unpeople
UK post-hardcore upstarts with arena ambition — Architects-school heaviness with a new generation's polish, ones to watch, loudly.
A Day to Remember
The band that solved pop-punk-plus-breakdown so completely that everyone since has worked from their template — Florida metalcore heft welded to choruses big enough for rock radio.
Mastodon
Atlanta's prog-sludge institution — concept records about doom and grief, played with genuinely uncommon musicianship and harmonized howls.
Tom Morello
The Rage guitarist solo, which in practice means the riffs, the politics, and a rotating cast of guests — expect surprises.
Social Distortion
Mike Ness's Orange County punk band, forty years deep in rockabilly-tinged songs about bad decisions — tattooed survival as an art form.
The Plot in You
Moody, bass-heavy alt-metal that trades breakdowns for slow-building dread and falsetto — 'FEEL NOTHING' the crossover moment.
Thrown
Swedish hardcore channelling panic-attack lyricism into riffs that feel physically claustrophobic — short songs, total impact.
Dogstar
Mammoth
Catch Your Breath
Ego Kill Talent
Scooter
H.P. Baxxter's German hardcore-rave institution, whose complete tonal mismatch with a rock festival is exactly the point — 'Hyper Hyper', forever.
Letlive
Ash
Northern Irish power-pop with an absurd hit rate in the late 90s and no interest in slowing the tempo since.
Dinosaur Pile-Up
Magnolia Park
TX2
Sweet Pill
The Pretty Wild
Ivri
Zero 9:36
Mould
Spineshank
LA industrial-tinged nu metal, mechanical and cold in a way most of their late-'90s peers never managed — machine-press riffs, still grinding.
Gatecreeper
Arizona death metal with a Swedish buzzsaw tone and hardcore pacing — economical, extremely heavy, and one of the revival's flagship names.
Boundaries
Ankor
Annisokay
Last Train
Decessus
Wayside
Private School
