From crowded sets to 'Ferris wheel fiasco' - Download 2026 was wilder than ever

Featuring headliners Linkin Park (with front woman Emily Armstrong), Guns N’ Roses and hotdog flavoured water legends, Limp Bizkit, Download 2026 was a guaranteed show stopper.

In reality, however, and with many Download festivals, it was swamped in controversy, and what I experienced was suspected oversold chaos and an event where the support acts consistently outperformed the mainliners.

Here are four reasons why this year’s Download festival was wackier and wilder than ever.

A sea of people

More than 95,000 rock lovers attended Download 2026, well above the 75,000-capacity of the previous year, and on the ground, it was blatantly obvious to many - myself included - that this event was oversold.

Everywhere you looked, it was a sea of bodies.

The Apex stage (the main stage) was constantly a scramble to get anywhere where you could see the stage, and the show tents were a navigational nightmare.

It was chaos trying to get anywhere this year, and that’s from a guy who loves a busy moshpit, a full underground gig.

David Milrose, of Cheshire, said of the crowds: “It’s wild, I’ve never seen it so busy down here.

“I love a crowd, but you couldn’t get anywhere without shoving past 50 people.”

The problem was exacerbated when the headliners came onto the stage, and many people found themselves as far back as the Ferris wheel while they were watching.

But with that being said, it was a mostly polite chaos, and there wasn’t much fighting or arguing in the crowds, which was nice for once.

Support acts vs headliners

This year featured some legendary support acts, so amazing in fact that many of us saw them as more of a draw than the headliners.

Bad Omens, Electric Callboy, Baby Metal, Black Veil Brides and The Pretty Reckless (with Taylor Momsen of the Grinch Cindy Lou Who fame), not to mention a wild appearance by Keanu Reeves’ band Dogstar.

And this is only to name a few, even Pendulum and Scooter made an appearance this year.

For many people, the only reason to go this year was for the support acts, and it was blatantly obvious by the exit queues prior to the headliners taking to the stage.

In fact, while I was there, the only headliner to really draw a crowd was Limp Bizkit, with Guns N’ Roses and Linkin Park seeing people flood to the carpark before they even took to the Apex.

It was definitely a problem, as many didn’t see a reason to stay to the end, but it was a nice problem to have.

The ‘Ferris wheel incident’

Arguably, the biggest controversy this year was the ‘Ferris wheel incident’, which saw two people get rather ‘heated’ whilst on one of the rides.

Thousands upon thousands of people caught a glimpse of the act, including young children, and the complaints came flooding in.

Many fans have taken to social media to talk about it so far, with many showing their upset, especially those who decided to attend the event with their children.

Lindsey Williams, who attended the event with her 10-year-old daughter, said: “It was disgusting.

“My daughter apparently saw it, and she told me after that she was really confused with what was going on, but it’s vile for that to happen in the open like that, especially where children could see.”

It’s unknown what happened to the exhibitionist duo; however, it left many feeling uncomfortable.

Scooter

That last bit of major controversy, in my opinion, was the appearance of Scooter.

Being a rock festival, the rave and techno legends were wildly out of place, and it left many, many people confused as to why they were offered a spot.

That being said, that doesn’t mean they didn’t put on a great show, as it was arguably one of the best sets at the entire event.

Their real problem was with the non-Download visitors who weren’t aware of the rock and metal culture, and found themselves in an unexpected mosh pit (a sort of pushing and shoving pit).

I counted at least 20 people who left the tent because it seemed too ‘aggressive’, and at least one person was crying after being shoved near the edge of a pit.

Melissa Palmer attended the event with her friend Sam, she said: “There were people shoving and jumping on each other, it was horrible.

“You don’t expect to come to a dance show and be shoved around like that, they should have stopped it or something.”

When asked if she had looked at the culture of Download, or rock music, prior to attending, she only shook her head and said she ‘didn’t’.

With all that being said, this year’s Download was amazing, and definitely one for the history books, if not for all the right reasons.

The festival have already announced dates for next year with early bird tickets already on sale - see you next year!