Download Festival 2027: Dates, Line-Up, Tickets & Guide

Last Updated: 13 November 2026

Download Festival 2027 is officially on, and the wait is finally over. After months of guesswork, cryptic social media posts and wild fan theories, the festival revealed its first wave of acts on Wednesday 12 November 2026, and the line-up is every bit as huge as rock fans hoped it would be. Blink-182, Bring Me The Horizon and Evanescence will headline the 24th edition of the UK’s biggest rock and metal festival, which returns to Donington Park from Wednesday 9 to Sunday 13 June 2027.

If you have been refreshing the festival’s social channels for weeks, you are not alone. Searches for Download Festival 2027 have surged across the UK in the past day, with fans hunting for dates, ticket prices and the full line-up. This guide brings it all together in one place: the confirmed headliners, the 100-plus acts announced so far, ticket prices and sale dates, camping and travel options, and what the five-day weekend at Donington Park will actually feel like. Everything here is checked against the official announcement and trusted music sources, so you can plan with confidence.

When is Download Festival 2027? Download Festival 2027 takes place from Wednesday 9 to Sunday 13 June 2027 at Donington Park in Leicestershire. The 24th edition, billed as DLXXIV, will be headlined by blink-182, Bring Me The Horizon and Evanescence, with more than 100 acts announced in the first wave.

When and Where Is Download Festival 2027?

Download Festival 2027 runs for five days, from Wednesday 9 June to Sunday 13 June 2027, at Donington Park, near Castle Donington in Leicestershire. The site sits beside the famous Donington Park motor racing circuit and close to East Midlands Airport, and it has been the spiritual home of British rock since the Monsters of Rock festivals of the 1980s. Download itself has called the field home since 2003.

The five-day format is now a Download tradition. Campers can arrive from Wednesday, giving the festival a slow build before the main arena opens on Friday. That extra time is part of the appeal: the campsite becomes a small town of its own, with its own bars, food stalls and late-night entertainment in the District X area, long before the first headline set of the weekend.

What is Download Festival? Download Festival is the UK’s biggest rock and metal festival, held every June at Donington Park in Leicestershire. First staged in 2003 as the successor to the Monsters of Rock festival, it now draws tens of thousands of fans over five days, with multiple stages, a huge campsite and a line-up that spans punk, metal, hardcore, alternative rock and everything in between.

• Dates: Wednesday 9 to Sunday 13 June 2027
• Venue: Donington Park, Castle Donington, Leicestershire, DE74 2RP
• Edition: 24th edition, officially billed as DLXXIV
• Headliners: blink-182, Bring Me The Horizon and Evanescence
• Acts announced so far: more than 100
• Tickets: on sale now, with general sale from 10am on Sunday 15 November 2026

Download Festival 2027 Line-Up: The Three Headliners

The headline news from the Download Festival 2027 announcement is a trio of bill-toppers that could hardly be more different from one another, and that is exactly the point. Blink-182 will make their Download debut, headlining the Apex stage in what promises to be one of the most joyous sets the festival has ever seen. The kings of pop-punk have never played Donington before, and their arrival fills a gap fans have talked about for years.

Bring Me The Horizon return to the top of the bill for a victory lap after their headline set in 2023, when they topped the bill at the festival’s 20th anniversary edition alongside Metallica and Slipknot. That 2023 performance, which saw Amy Lee of Evanescence join them on stage, is still talked about as one of the great modern Download headline sets. Their return feels like unfinished business, and expectations will be sky high.

Evanescence complete the trio, fronted by Amy Lee, and their booking makes history. They will be only the second female-led act to headline Download Festival, following Linkin Park in 2026, when Emily Armstrong became the festival’s first female headliner. For a festival that has faced fair questions about representation on its biggest stage, two female-fronted headliners in two years is a genuine shift, not a token gesture.

Day splits for the headliners have not yet been confirmed, so it is not yet known which band closes which night. In recent years the Friday, Saturday and Sunday headline slots have each gone to one of the three bill-toppers, and the same pattern is expected for Download Festival 2027. Keep an eye on the official channels for the day-by-day schedule, which usually follows a few weeks after the first line-up announcement.

Faith No More and the Rest of the First Wave

Before the announcement, Faith No More were one of the most talked-about names in the Download Festival 2027 rumour mill. Fans had been trading theories for months, and the band’s name kept appearing in breakout searches alongside the festival itself. The speculation is now settled: Faith No More are confirmed for Download Festival 2027, named in the official first-wave announcement on 12 November 2026. They are no longer a rumour. They are on the bill.

The same announcement confirmed a very special performance from rock legends Mötley Crüe, although the festival has not yet explained what makes the set special. Whether it is a full headline-length show, a themed set or something entirely different remains to be revealed, and that mystery is clearly deliberate. Expect more details closer to June.

Beyond the biggest names, the first wave of Download Festival 2027 is packed with heavyweights and rising stars alike. The Prodigy bring their ferocious live show back to Donington, while Grammy-winning hardcore band Turnstile, Australian metalcore giants Parkway Drive and masked buzz band PRESIDENT all sit near the top of the bill. Pierce The Veil, 5 Seconds Of Summer, I Prevail, Soft Play, Down, Basement, High Vis, Static-X, Murderdolls and Body Count featuring Ice-T are all confirmed too.

• Rock and metal legends: Faith No More, Mötley Crüe, The Prodigy, Carcass, Napalm Death, Kreator, Clutch, Primus
• Modern heavyweights: Turnstile, Parkway Drive, Pierce The Veil, I Prevail, Converge, Comeback Kid, Malevolence, Jinjer
• Alternative and crossover acts: 5 Seconds Of Summer, The Hives, PVRIS, Bilmuri, Soft Play, Dayseeker, Holding Absence
• Rising names to watch: PRESIDENT, Basement, High Vis, Static-X, Murderdolls, Body Count ft. Ice-T, Hawthorne Heights, Cancer Bats

That is only the beginning. The festival has said more acts and surprises are still to come, with further announcements expected in the months before June. If the pattern of recent years holds, a second wave will add dozens more names, including the District X stage line-up and the smaller-stage acts that often produce the weekend’s most talked-about sets. For now, the first wave alone is more than 100 bands deep, which is a remarkable amount of music for a single ticket.

Download Festival 2027 Tickets: Prices and How to Buy

Tickets for Download Festival 2027 are on sale now, and demand has been extraordinary. Early Bird tickets sold out within two weeks of going on sale, and the festival says this is officially the fastest-selling Download ever, with tickets on course to sell out for the fifth year in a row. If you are planning to go, the message from the organisers is clear: do not wait.

The remaining tickets go on general sale from Planet Rock Tickets at 10am on Sunday 15 November 2026. A PayPal presale is already live, and there is also a Download Family presale from 10am on Saturday 14 November 2026. Flexible payment options are available at checkout, and Ticketmaster bookings can be split with a pay-in-three option, which helps spread the cost of the weekend.

Ticket type	Price listed	Best for
5-day camping	£345	The full festival experience, Wednesday to Sunday
3-day camping	£325	Friday to Sunday with a pitch on site
Weekend arena only (no camping)	£285	Fans staying off site in hotels or at home

The prices above are those currently listed for Download Festival 2027, and they can change as tiers sell through, so always check the official festival website or Ticketmaster before you buy. For comparison, 2026 adult tickets cost £310 for a weekend arena ticket, £345 for three-night camping and £365 for five-night camping, with booking fees on top. Day tickets are also usually released, but in 2026 the Friday and Sunday day tickets sold out and only Saturday remained, so weekend tickets are the safer bet if you want a guaranteed place.

One warning matters more than any other: buy only from the official festival website, Ticketmaster or the approved agents listed there. Resale prices for Download Festival 2027 are already appearing at well above face value, with some listings from £380 for a five-day camping pass. The festival has strict rules on resale, and a ticket bought from an unofficial source may not get you through the gate. If a deal looks too good to be true, it almost certainly is.

Camping, Travel and Getting to Donington Park

Camping is the heart of the Download experience, and most fans would not have it any other way. General, eco and quiet camping areas are available for three or five nights, so you can choose between the lively heart of the campsite and a calmer corner where you might actually sleep. A car park pass is a separate purchase and must be bought in advance, so sort that at the same time as your ticket if you are driving.

If camping is not for you, the towns around Donington hold the hotel version of the weekend. Castle Donington itself is closest, with Derby, Nottingham and Loughborough all within easy reach, but rooms go quickly once the line-up lands, so book early. With the headliners now confirmed, expect nearby hotels to fill fast over the coming weeks.

1. Buy your ticket and camping add-on together through the official site or Ticketmaster, and add a car park pass if you are driving.
2. Choose your camping area: general for the full atmosphere, eco for a greener pitch, or quiet camping if you value sleep.
3. Plan your journey: Big Green Coach, the festival’s official coach partner, runs from 107 UK pick-up points, with fares from £47.50.
4. Pack for every weather: Donington in June can deliver sunshine, downpours and mud in the same afternoon, so bring waterproofs and sturdy boots.
5. Arrive early on your chosen day: gates are busiest on Friday, so Wednesday or Thursday arrival means a better pitch and a calmer start.

Public transport is a solid option too. East Midlands Airport sits almost next door to the site, and East Midlands Parkway station is a short taxi or shuttle ride away, with trains to London, Nottingham, Derby and Sheffield. Whatever your route, leave plenty of time: tens of thousands of people arrive at Donington Park over the same few days, and the roads around Castle Donington get very busy.

What to Expect at Download Festival 2027

The main Apex stage is where the headliners close each night, but Download Festival 2027 is far more than three big sets. The Opus, Avalanche and Dogtooth stages run across the weekend, alongside the District X area, which hosts its own line-up and late-night entertainment. In 2026 the District X bill included acts such as Five, Electric Six and The All-American Rejects, and a similar mix of nostalgia and discovery is expected this time around.

Food and drink at Download have come a long way from the burger-van stereotype. The arena and campsite now offer street food from dozens of traders, with vegan, vegetarian and gluten-free options widely available, plus real ale bars and cocktail stalls. Prices are festival prices, so budget accordingly, but the quality is a world away from a decade ago.

The atmosphere is what keeps people coming back. Download’s crowd is famously welcoming: first-timers are adopted by neighbouring campers, fancy dress is everywhere, and the campsite singalongs run long into the night. It is a festival where a teenager at their first gig and a fan on their twentieth Download can end up sharing a tent-side barbecue. That community spirit is a big part of why tickets sell out year after year, and why Download Festival 2027 is already the fastest-selling edition in the festival’s history.

Download Festival 2027 vs 2026: What Has Changed

Last year’s festival set a high bar. Download Festival 2026 ran from Wednesday 10 to Sunday 14 June 2026, headlined by Limp Bizkit, Guns N’ Roses and Linkin Park, with around 80,000 to 95,000 fans on site across the five days. Limp Bizkit finally topped the bill 23 years after they were first booked to headline in 2003, Guns N’ Roses played a set of almost three hours, and Linkin Park closed the weekend with Emily Armstrong making history as the festival’s first female headliner. The year before, in 2025, Green Day, Sleep Token and Korn headlined.

So what is different about Download Festival 2027? The most obvious change is the shape of the bill. Where 2026 leaned on legacy rock royalty, 2027 mixes a pop-punk debut, a modern metal homecoming and a gothic-rock icon at the top, with a far broader spread of genres underneath. The presence of acts such as 5 Seconds Of Summer, The Prodigy and PRESIDENT on the same poster as Napalm Death and Carcass says a lot about how wide Download’s net has become.

The other change is demand. Early Bird tickets sold out within two weeks, faster than ever before, and the festival is on course to sell out for the fifth year in a row. That is partly the line-up, and partly the simple fact that Download has become a fixed point in the British summer: the weekend every rock fan plans their year around. The 2023 edition, the 20th anniversary, reported a record attendance of around 100,000 people across four days. If 2026 felt like a celebration of the festival’s history, 2027 feels like a statement about its future.

Tips for First-Timers Heading to Download Festival 2027

If Download Festival 2027 will be your first time at Donington, a little planning goes a long way. The site is huge, the days are long, and the weather is famously unpredictable, so the fans who enjoy it most are the ones who arrive prepared rather than hoping for the best.

• Download the official app once stage times are released, and build your own clashfinder before you arrive.
• Wear proper footwear: the walk from the campsite to the arena is long, and mud is a Download tradition.
• Stay hydrated and eat properly: five days of live music is a marathon, not a sprint, and water points are free.
• Protect your hearing: earplugs cost a few pounds and save your ears for the next forty years of gigs.
• Keep your phone charged: a portable battery pack is worth its weight in gold when you are trying to find your friends at midnight.
• Look after each other: Download’s crowd looks out for its own, so check on your neighbours and use the welfare tents if you need them.

Above all, give yourself time to wander. Some of the best Download memories happen away from the main stage: a tiny band on the Dogtooth stage at midday, a surprise set in District X, or a stranger’s playlist drifting across the campsite at 2am. The headliners are the reason most people buy a ticket, but the discoveries are the reason they come back.

Download Festival 2027 is shaping up to be one of the biggest weekends in the festival’s history. Three headline acts with three very different stories, more than 100 bands already confirmed, a special Mötley Crüe performance still wrapped in mystery, and tickets selling faster than ever before. Whether you are a blink-182 fan finally getting your Download debut, a Bring Me The Horizon devotee returning for the victory lap, or an Evanescence fan watching Amy Lee make history at Donington, this is a line-up worth clearing your calendar for.

The clock is ticking. Early Bird tickets are gone, the remaining tickets go on general sale at 10am on Sunday 15 November 2026, and the festival is on course to sell out for the fifth year in a row. Book your ticket, sort your camping or hotel, pack your waterproofs and your sturdiest boots, and get ready for five days at Donington Park. Download Festival 2027 is coming, and you will not want to miss it. Share this guide with your festival crew, and we will see you in the field in June.