Download Festival starts next week. Five days. Four main stages plus the glorious chaos of District X. Over a hundred bands. Donington Park doing what Donington Park does best — turning a field in Leicestershire into the loudest place on earth. If you're going, you already know this is going to be a weekend you'll be talking about for years. If you're not going, we're sorry for your loss.
Here's your Moshed guide to the stages, the headliners, and the acts you absolutely need to be standing in front of between June 12th and 14th.
Three headliners. Five stages. One field. No excuses.
The Apex Stage — Where History Gets Made
This is the big one. The Apex is Download's beating heart, and the 2026 headliner trio is genuinely historic. Limp Bizkit open the headline account on Friday night — their first ever Download headline slot despite being one of the most beloved festival acts on the planet. Fred Durst and the band are their only UK appearance of 2026, so if you've ever wanted to be part of a 100,000-strong crowd losing their minds to Rollin', this is literally your only chance this year.
Guns N' Roses take Saturday. Axl, Slash, and Duff — classic rock royalty at their spiritual home. Saturday night at Donington with GN'R is a sentence that doesn't need further justification. And then Sunday belongs to Linkin Park, with Emily Armstrong making history as the first woman to headline Download in the festival's 23-year run. However you feel about the band's evolution, that's a milestone worth witnessing. The crowd singalongs alone will be extraordinary.
Beyond the three headliners, the Apex undercard is stacked. Cypress Hill, Electric Callboy, Pendulum, Hollywood Undead, and P.O.D. make Friday a full day of bangers before Limp Bizkit even take the stage. Trivium, BABYMETAL, and Black Veil Brides anchor Saturday. And Bad Omens, Ice Nine Kills, and Mastodon make Sunday afternoon an absolute mission to navigate.
The Opus Stage — Heavy Hitters, No Filler
The Opus has quietly become Download's second-best tent for a reason: it consistently delivers the sets that people talk about for years. This year is no different.
Halestorm are one of the most dependable live bands in rock and they know exactly how to own a festival stage. Architects are bringing everything — the riffs, the fury, the catharsis. A Day To Remember are headlining the Opus on Sunday night, which is going to be an absolute riot of pop-punk chaos and breakdowns, and will be causing scheduling conflicts for anyone also trying to catch Linkin Park. Honestly, respect the dilemma.
Creeper are the Friday Opus wildcard — gothic rock theatrics, hooks sharp enough to draw blood, and Will Gould delivering one of the most compelling frontman performances you'll see all weekend. Periphery bring the prog-metal precision. The Pretty Reckless, Behemoth, and Tom Morello round out a stage where you could park yourself for the entire weekend and not feel short-changed.
The Opus is where you go when you want to be absolutely certain you'll see something brilliant.
The Avalanche Stage — The Soul of the Festival
If the Apex is where you go to see history, the Avalanche is where you go to feel it. This is the stage for bands who have built their audiences the slow, hard way — through years of touring, word of mouth, and the kind of devotion that only real music earns.
Feeder are headlining the Avalanche and if you know, you know. Buck Rogers still hits harder than it has any right to after twenty-five years, and Grant Nicholas is one of the most underrated live performers in British rock. This is a band that should be on a much bigger stage at Download, but the Avalanche is going to be absolutely rammed and the atmosphere will be something special.
Also watch out for Story of the Year, Rain City Drive, and Sleep Theory as the Avalanche delivers its usual mix of nostalgia, discovery, and the kind of mid-afternoon sets that remind you why you started coming to festivals. The Avalanche is also the stage producing the next generation of acts that will eventually headline — keep your eyes open for who's on early.
The Dogtooth Stage — The Extreme End
Download's most dedicated corner. The Dogtooth is not for the faint-hearted and it doesn't pretend to be. This is where things get properly heavy.
Static-X close the Dogtooth on Sunday in what will be a fitting, furious tribute to Wayne Static's legacy — the kind of set that the Dogtooth was built for. Blood Incantation bring their cosmic death metal — technically breathtaking, physically devastating, and genuinely one of the most interesting extreme metal acts on the planet right now. Conjurer are one of the UK's finest heavy exports and will turn the Dogtooth into a slow-moving wall of misery in the best possible sense.
Also across the weekend: Soulfly playing Sepultura's Chaos A.D. in full, Corrosion of Conformity, Gatecreeper, and BAND-MAID — Japanese hard rock that hits with an absolute ferocity that consistently catches people off guard. The Dogtooth is always worth the walk across the site.
You'll leave the Dogtooth with your ears ringing and a massive grin on your face. That's the deal.
District X — The Bit You Weren't Expecting
Every great festival needs a side room where things get weird, and Download's is District X. This year's lineup includes The All-American Rejects, Electric Six, and — brilliantly — Five, fresh off their arena comeback tour and ready to make a field full of metalheads extremely confused about their feelings.
District X also brings Bat Sabbath (Cancer Bats performing Black Sabbath covers, which is exactly as good as it sounds), DJ sets from Creeper, Holding Absence, and Funeral For A Friend's Lucas Woodland, plus the internet's favourite novelty: Nic Cage Against The Machine, a Rage Against The Machine tribute fronted by a Nicolas Cage impersonator. There are also secret sets to be announced on the weekend itself, which means there's always the chance of something that breaks the internet.
District X is where you go after midnight when your feet hurt and your judgment is compromised. It is, historically, where some of Download's best memories are made.
The Moshed Verdict
Download 2026 is the full package. Three headliners who each represent a completely different era of heavy music. A second stage that could headline festivals in its own right. A Dogtooth lineup that goes harder than it has in years. And District X doing what District X does.
If you're heading to Donington next week, come find us. We'll be the ones in the pit. See you in the field.