Five, Electric Six and The All-American Rejects have been announced for the District X stage at Download 2026.
The rock and metal festival is returning to Donington Park in Leicestershire from June 10 to 14 and in November, they revealed that Limp Bizkit, Guns N’ Roses and Linkin Park would be headlining the festival, each of them UK exclusives for 2026.
Other big names originally announced for the event included Bad Omens, Cypress Hill, Tom Morello, Trivium, Halestorm, Pendulum, Mastodon, BABYMETAL, Architects and Feeder.
Now, festival organisers have revealed the line-up for the District X stage, which has been described as the event’s “ultimate playground”.
‘90s boyband Five will be playing, as well as Electric Six and The All-American Rejects, the latter with an acoustic set. DJ sets will come from Dick & Dom, Creeper, MODESTEP, Cancer Bats’ Liam Cormer, Holding Absence’s Lucas Woodland, DUNE RATS and Frozemode.
There will also be secret sets to be revealed on the weekend itself, as well as sets from TokenGrass, a bluegrass tribute to Sleep Token, and Nic Cage Against The Machine, a Rage Against The Machine tribute act fronted by a Nicolas Cage impersonator.
There will be a full comedy programme presented by The Comedy Store, with stand-up from over 25 acts including Thomas Green, Matt Bragg, Felicity Ward, Dinesh Nathan and Sikisa.
Weekend camping tickets have now sold out, but weekend arena and day tickets remain and you can find yours here.
Mainstream pop acts like Five have become a hit at the traditionally rock and metal-focused Download in recent years – in 2025, Vengaboys pulled a massive crowd at District X, while McFly were also on the bill last year, and Busted made a splash there in 2024.
Download 2025 was headlined by Green Day, Sleep Token and KoRn and also featured the likes of Weezer, Sex Pistols featuring Frank Carter, The Darkness and Poppy.
Festival organiser Andy Copping spoke to NME earlier this year about the importance of creating a platform for new and emerging talent. “I’ve always wanted to do that, and you can see it in how we’ve been developing the other stages like the Dogtooth stage and the Avalanche,” he said.
“For us, it’s about giving bands the opportunity to grow. We’ve got the platform and we want to be sending a message to those guys like ‘Come and play. We believe in you and you’ve got a great opportunity here.’ Thankfully, for the most part, these bands do step up and they do deliver.”
