Download Festival 2003

Download festival was set up to recapture the spirit of the Donington Monsters of Rock festivals of the eighties. Could this goal be achieved? Well, the festival certainly was beset by problems from the outset but the organisers has an ace up their sleeve and used it to come up trumps.

Despite it seeming like a good idea, ticket sales were slow and it appeared that it hadn't been able to prise the rock community away from the two pronged Reading/Leeds Festival. Matters weren't helped by the ever unreliable Limp Bizkit pulling out of their headline spot to extend the recording of their new album.

Next, there was a problem with ticket distribution. People setting off early Friday hadn't received their tickets by Thursday.

On first arrival at the site it looked like the problems were going to continue. Spaces on the much publicised camping plus site, which set you back an extra tenner for spaces nearer the band and better facilities, ran out on the Friday. Those with camping plus tickets but allocated normal camping places were promised they could still use the facilities. However, monitoring appeared slack. I wandered into the camping plus area by mistake and wasn't stopped despite not having a wristband of any description.



However, with these problems out of the way and once inside the festival the event seemed impeccably organised. I was particularly impressed by the safety measures in place. Some people thought the one way system implemented by security at points between the two stages were a little regimented. It did appear to work though, as an effective means of easing congestion.

A look around suggested a different crowd to that usually in attendance at Reading or Leeds. So would Download have the potential to remain on the festival circuit? Saturday evening certainly didn't look under-populated. However, there was a high fraction of this population here to see Iron Maiden alone. The car parks looked sparsely populated after their performance. So what could be done to attract to people to Sunday. That is where Download's organisers pulled a stunt of massive proportions.



The last addition to the bill was Metallica cover band Apocolyptica. This led to rumours of an appearance by the great men themselves. These were quickly quashed by the organisers, but judging from the amount of Metallica shirts on show, people remained unconvinced by the denial.

The band did indeed make an appearance and there will be more on that in my Sunday review. It was the thing on everyone's lips at the end though. Definitely enough to send people home with lasting memories of the first Download festival. Whether it is enough to prevent it being the last, only time will tell.

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