Download: Fans leave muddy festival after heavy rain

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Music fans have been leaving a festival before a note has even been played - after torrential rain reduced the site to a "mud-bath".
Thousands descended on Download festival's campsite at Donington Park on Wednesday.
One man, who left after injuring himself, described scenes of "impassable muddy sludge everywhere".
Fans braving the mud have rechristened the event "Drownload", posting pictures of drenched ground online.
John Hawkins, from Grimsby left the Donington Park site Thursday morning after suffering a slipped disc.
"I spent the next 24 hours crying in my tent," he said.
"It's not communicated there would be such a distance between the car park and the campsite."
The 34-year-old said he made the choice to leave after searching for a toilet "that wasn't flooded or looking like something out of a horror movie" for an hour.
"I was looking forward to my first festival experience, but all I got was mud, cold and pain," he said.
Samantha Gibben, from Stockon-on-Tees, dislocated her hip and left after six hours.
"I was just sliding everywhere," she said.
"The village was more or less inaccessible for anyone who couldn't walk and the campsites were very slippery already."
Miss Gibben said wheelchairs were getting stuck and friends who stayed overnight had hypothermia.
"The stick it out attitude is no excuse for not looking after yourself and putting your health first."
Sullivan-Wren Sheriff, 28, from Nottingham opened up a three-bedroom house to those leaving the campsite.
A young man who took up the offer "wasn't in a good way so I said I'd pick him up to make sure he gets a wash and some clean clothes.
"There's a lot of people in their late teens/early 20s who have travelled miles and it would be a shame for them to not full enjoy the experience."
Roads on Wednesday were gridlocked as campers arrived at the site in heavy rain.
Organisers tweeted: "A big thank you to all of you for keeping up the amazing Download spirit. No-one is tougher than you guys."
The three-day music event will be headlined by Slipknot, Tool and Def Leppard, but many festival-goers are defiant to deal with the mud.

https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1344716085l/3199146.jpg

"I was looking forward to my first festival experience, but all I got was mud, cold and pain," he said.

chefkiss.gif

I'm a fan of the eternal "It's not communicated there would be such a distance between the car park and the campsite."

Not sure if the last sentence is supposed to be a dig at Slipknot, Tool and Def Leppard or if it's just badly written.

THE GREATEST TIME I EVER HAD
WAS WHEN WE DIDN'T TELL THE BANDS

"Sullivan-Wren Sheriff, 28, from Nottingham opened up a three-bedroom house to those leaving the campsite."

they're from nottingham and their name is "sheriff"? that is just too fucking precious

also, is this a 28-year-old who owns a house?

"I was looking forward to my first festival experience, but all I got was mud, cold and pain," he said.
chefkiss.gif
― Oy McVey (Noodle Vague), Thursday, June 13, 2019 3:06 PM (one hour ago) Bookmark

this dingus is 34 years old.

xp. you can buy a house for under $300k american in nottingham

Sounds pretty grim, sucks that people actually got hurt.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PQmfrPl81dY

"mud cold & pain" is a very close 2nd but the clear winner for me is "I spent the next 24 hours crying in my tent," he said.

If he left the site why was he in his tent? Did he repitch it at home just to cry in it?

I too used to stick around when festivals turned into a mudbath - glastonbury are at least prepared for it and put metal grills on the paths. bestival in 2008(?) had no such preparations and two stages sank into the mud. I spent an evening with one of the cancelled acts and watched him try to make the experience better by doing more poppers than I have every seem a human being attempt. It's one of those uniquely British uniquely grim experiences, up there with the pushing over toilets and setting fire to stuff on the last night of reading/leeds.

Oh dear. My colleague is going to that.

download festival is going well

I haven't been to a proper festival in years, but I've been pretty lucky and never experienced a true mudbath festival - I've been at a couple of wet Glastonburys, I do remember one being a bit miserable trying to get our tents up in a downpour (especially because I think that's the same year I forgot to bring any tent pegs) but I don't think it lasted all weekend, and while I saw some flooded tents in ditches that year ours were OK.

one of those uniquely British uniquely grim experiences

Woodstock 94 is p notorious in the annals of rained out festivals iirc

supposedly Green Day gave their profile a real boost by letting everyone throw mud at them which I guess you could attribute to a certain kind of American resolve

"impassable muddy sludge everywhere" - that's just Carcass

I'm not convinced that rainy festivals are that much of a uniquely British thing.

not saying other countries don't have rainy festivals, but that unexpected week of rain with 100,000 wellies tramping the grass into grey sludge in what is supposedly midsummer, everyone freezing cold, huddling in pacamacs, nobody enjoying it at all, but everyone grimly walking in sullen lines, staying on because blitz spirit or sth, that's what I'm talking about.

"The three-day music event will be headlined by Slipknot, Tool and Def Leppard, but many festival-goers are defiant to deal with the mud."

What?

I too used to stick around when festivals turned into a mudbath - glastonbury are at least prepared for it and put metal grills on the paths. bestival in 2008(?) had no such preparations and two stages sank into the mud. I spent an evening with one of the cancelled acts and watched him try to make the experience better by doing more poppers than I have every seem a human being attempt. It's one of those uniquely British uniquely grim experiences, up there with the pushing over toilets and setting fire to stuff on the last night of reading/leeds.

Was lucky enough to go to Glastonbury for four years in a row in glorious sunshine in the 90s. The fifth time, in 1997, we left on the Friday morning as it was just ridiculous.

Glastonbury 98 was my first muddy festival, and I stuck around until the monday, abiding memory is trying to get a bit of the benefit of someone's big umbrella in the crowd by the jazzworld stage while portishead were playing and being told to fuck off

As things stand I'm going to Glastonbury in two weeks time, I'm hoping this is the shitty weather getting itself out of the way early.

"The three-day music event will be headlined by Slipknot, Tool and Def Leppard, but many festival-goers are defiant to deal with the mud."

What?

My last festival was Glasto in 2005, never, ever, ever again, biblical rain for two days before the event, months worth apparently, utterly miserable, my abiding memory other than how tiring just keeping stood upright was, is a substantial and deep pool that accumulated outside the John Peel tent which had been filled up with hay bales to soak up the water, didn't work, just made a weird soup and one sole, poor bugger's tent right in the centre, the top 5 inches of it poking out of the water, cheer up though! The Magic Numbers have just started, ugh.

i was there in 2005 as well. utterly awful.
Friday morning I was sat in the tent holding it down as a river was flowing underneath.

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