Bloodstock Festival steps into 2026 carrying a quiet confidence. Celebrating 25 years, the festival has stayed true to itself, yet still grows, not from impulse, but intent.

In conversation with organizer Adam Gregory, one thing stood out: the real win in 2025 wasn’t just selling out again, it was seeing fans rush back for next year’s festival.

As he said, “fans were happy, bands were happy, we were delighted”. That kind of reaction lets Bloodstock test new ideas while keeping its core intact.

Winter Gathering: An Indoor Return with a Purpose

Long before fans return to Catton Park’s fields, Bloodstock shifts inside for the Winter Gathering, a single-day show at KK’s Steel Mill that echoes its early spirit. Starting indoors in 2001, the festival now revives this format; Adam called it “a nod” to the indoor days in Derby. But this isn’t just sentimental recall; the original site, The Assembly Rooms, burned down, forcing them to find another base in the Midlands.

That’s when KK’s Steel Mill offered to help:

The guys at KK’s jumped up and waved their hands and, we were listening. So it’s a great venue. Tice and the whole team are working really hard and I think it’s gonna be an amazing show to be honest, and, hopefully, the start of an annual, winter gathering each year.

Having had the pleasure of hosting events at KK’s Steel Mill, we can attest to how much of a good match this is. KK’s embodies the very spirit that makes up an independent venue, and with shows featuring the likes of The Ghost Inside, Ugly Kid Joe and Crobot coming up, the venue is clearly hitting the right notes.

Adam also highlighted how positioning the event in winter helps venues like KK’s Steel Mill:

I think it would be difficult to put an event on like this during the summer. There are so many different events already on, and it is nice to spread them out. I think from a venue’s perspective, as you know, we do Metal 2 The Masses throughout the year, and this is a nice thing to do as well, and sort of spread the love, and give fans of something between summer and the start of the spring as something else to get their teeth stuck into.

Winter Gathering isn’t just an extra effort. Rather, it’s a way to further bring together the underground community, on which Bloodstock relies heavily.

Looking Ahead To Bloodstock 2026

The biggest update for 2026 is about Bloodstock’s layout changes. Instead of packing in more attendees, they have instead focused on rearranging existing elements, freeing up room for an expanded Sophie Tent alongside a relocation of The EMP stage and shifting access areas further out, to help crowds move better across the field.

The Sophie Lancaster Tent’s upgrade shows exactly where Bloodstock is headed; it now matches the size of the bands performing, Adam admitted the change was essential, especially after events such as Machine Head’s surprise show, when the tent struggled to hold the crowd.

We are bound by a road and a river. You look at Download Festival, they’ve got lots of land around them that they can expand or contract depending on the ticket sales. With us, it’s a very finite footprint. So it’s small tweaks, small changes that would allow us to do things. What we don’t want to do is cram so many people into such a tight space that it becomes uncomfortable. We are comfortable where we are as an event and comfortable where we are as a capacity.

This idea guides how they’re launching the Ronnie James Dio Stage on the Thursday for the first time, with things coming full circle as Saxon headline:

Saxon is going to be headlining, and I think that was important to do because it’s the 25th anniversary. Saxon opened the first-ever bloodstock at the indoor event. So it’s very fitting that Biff and the boys are back to open the first real day of the festival with a really special show. So we’re stoked that we’re able to do it.

The Future of Metal

If you haven’t seen it, YouTuber Rick Beato claims younger crowds are losing interest in metal. This is based on monthly listeners on Spotify being smaller for bands like Bring Me The Horizon, compared to the likes of Metallica. Yet Adam pushed back, on this:

I’d say I would disagree, I honestly would. I wouldn’t think that’s the case. I think the issue is generally that it’s those opportunities for metal bands to be recognized and play shows that people are going to know about. We’ve lost so many venues and festivals since COVID, and that marketplace has definitely shrunk.

That may play into the hands of statisticians. But I think if you actually go to shows, your audience profiles are, very mixed young through to old. We see it at bloodstock with kids coming through, as you would do at any other kind of rap, rock or metal show.

He also mentioned Metal 2 The Masses, along with other growing grassroots movements in areas that data usually misses, as further evidence towards this. For anyone nervous about attending Bloodstock or the Winter Gathering for the first time, Adam’s message was simple and direct:

Drop the stereotype that is portrayed in the media or anywhere else, a metal or rock show, is going to be surrounded by the nicest people on the planet. They’re there for music, they’re not there for drama. They’re there for a good time with friends and, there’s so many that come to Bloodstock and other events that will go on their own and meet people while they’re there.

It’s probably the most engaging, warm, welcoming group of people you’re ever going to experience. I think it is something that everybody needs to experience at least once, and if you have not done it, just come and do it and see what you think.

Bloodstock continues to feel like a festival built by the people who show up to it, not exaggerated, trying too hard or overreaching, just endlessly refining itself while holding onto its identity.

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