BLOODSTOCK is nine weekends away! Here’s the latest news…

There’s just 65 days – or 9 weekends – ‘til your heavy metal brethren thunder their way onto Catton Park’s hallowed turf. As the days count down, BLOODSTOCK has the next phase of Metal 2 The Masses winners to reveal, as well as a new batch of club nights for June and July, plus news about the gaming arena this year, Vikings, and more!

First up then, the bands… Grabbing a Friday slot on the Hopical Storm New Blood stage are Nottingham alt-rock trio SLEEP IN MOTION, Belfast metallers NIHILANTH, Newcastle riff merchants KRAKEN WAKER, and Edinburgh heavyists HAMMER

Saturday’s bill will include Sheffield brutalists IL, Irish-based, Brazilian crossover thrash squad BLACK HOLE DIVERS, Manchester thrashers HELLBEARER, and Leicester modern metallers RUNNING WITH KNIVES.

Lastly, appearing on Sunday’s line up are Leeds prog rock crew DIVIDED BY DESIGN and the victors in the Poland M2TM finals, melodeath newcomers SEMPRAH.  Stay tuned for the next phase of winners soon!

BLOODSTOCK club nights have been going great guns so far! By popular demand, we’ve added two Scottish events; Glasgow and and a first ever night in Edinburgh. Head to one of the following events to meet some other BLOODSTOCK-ers and hear lots of BOA bands old and new, and maybe win a prize! Check locally for more details. There will be a competition at every club night to win a pair of standard weekend festival tickets!

Fri 7th June – Glasgow – Cathouse

Fri 21st June – Exeter – The Cavern, Altern8

Sat 29th June – Manchester – Satan’s Hollow, Spitfire

Sat 29th June – Stoke-on-Trent – The Sugarmill, Devil’s Night

Sat 6th July – Torquay – The Attic, Party Hard!

Sat 6th July – Brighton – Above, Apocalypse

Fri 12th July – Bristol – The Lanes, Phuct

Sat 13th July – Isle of Wight – Strings, Apocalypse

Sat 20th July – Newcastle – Think Tank, Grindhouse

Sat 20th July – Edinburgh – Decade, Decade’s 12th Birthday

Sat 20th July – York – Bluebox, Deadbolt

Fri 26th July – London – Elektrowerkz, Voodoo Summer Ball

Sat 27th July – Nottingham – The Sal, Raise Your Horns

Sat 27th July – Southampton – Sobar, Apocalypse

Sat 27th July – Stoke-on-Trent – The Sugarmill, Devil’s Night

GAMERS ASSEMBLE!!  Wanna try out some VR tech at BLOODSTOCK this year and maybe win some tickets to next year’s festival?  In the Gaming Arena tent, as well as the usual fun, there will be a new installation with three VR games for you to test your mettle with; Beat SaberSpace Pirate and for the very bravest among you, Richie’s Plank Experience!  The Beat Saber game will run as a competition across the duration of the festival, with the Top 3 scores at the end of the weekend winning prizes.  The top scoring player will land themselves a pair of tickets to BLOODSTOCK 2025!  And don’t forget, you’ll be able to find out the identity of several of the 2025 bands including all three headliners by watching the big screen announcement on site.

Did we mention the Vikings?! Consider yourself warned, the Vikings are coming back! Warriors from across the country will converge on the hallowed fields of Catton Hall to compete in full contact 1v1 and team battles to be crowned the champions of BLOODSTOCK. The sound of steel clashing and the splintering of shields will echo through the air as these warriors compete in battles and displays across the weekend in a special arena. This is not staged or choreographed! These warriors fight in fully authentic armour using real (albeit blunted) weapons in full contact competition.

You will have the chance to meet the warriors of the Blodorn, Hrafn, and Halda, and see combat up close, as Vikings mingle with BLOODSTOCKers and challenge each other to duels of honour. The Norsemen raiders’ reputation for fierceness will be on display over the entire weekend. Stop and chat to the Viking warriors and take a selfie with them! When they’re not claiming glory on the battlefield, they’ll also answer your questions about their weaponry, armour, and the history of the Viking Age.

If the couch is more your thing than combat, get ready to amplify your festival experience with Thunderflix! As a special thank-you to all BLOODSTOCK attendees, we’re offering an exclusive opportunity to enjoy Thunderflix for FREE for two full months! Dive into the world’s largest collection of concerts, documentaries and feature films entirely dedicated to heavy metal. Enjoy unlimited streaming on any device, anytime, anywhere. Enter promo code FREETHUNDERFLIX at checkout to access your free two-month subscription. Don’t miss out – this offer is a headliner in its own right!

BLOODSTOCK’s dedicated one-stop-shop with Preo is now up and running, featuring an array of festival essentials. From cold beers (and 4 pinters of mango cider) to merch, through to camping equipment and much more, you can secure all your must-have items in advance from one online shop, eradicating the need for last-minute scrambles, long queues or searching in multiple online stores. And then just collect on your arrival at BLOODSTOCK! For more info and to explore the online shop, visit the Bloodstock Festival Preo store.

ARRIVE ONE DAY EARLY FOR JUST £20 + booking fee!

BLOODSTOCK knows possible congestion and intended roadworks on the routes around Catton Park could cause delays sitting in traffic which no one likes. Plus, who doesn’t want a little more BLOODSTOCK?! So, after extensive review with the licensing council, to make your festival experience even better this year, all standard campsites will open one day earlier at midday on Wednesday 7th August for a limited number of spots, to help spread arrivals over two days. Of course, coming early also means more time to get settled & hang out with your mates for more fun too!

To aid in that, there will be a cinema set up on the Midgard village green showing movies on Wednesday evening, a bar, food stalls, premium hand-crafted coffee (in the Ironwood campsite), plus some light evening entertainment via inflatables and DJ’s. The supermarket and Fat Frank’s camping shop will also be open in Midgard for anything you’ve forgotten and to blow up your airbed.

You should only consider buying a Early Arrival add-on ticket if:

You have or will be getting a standard weekend ticket (this includes those with a campervan ticket)
You are NOT travelling via a Big Green Coach package
You are NOT camping in the Serpents Lair VIP or Accessible campsites

Headbangers who have booked a Tangerine Fields pre-erected tent package (located in the Asgard campsite) can also arrive early on Wednesday from midday by purchasing the Early Arrival add-on ticket.

Standard campsites include Asgard, Valhalla, Midgard, Ironwood, Jotunheim, and Hel, plus for families and those wanting a quieter camping experience, Ragnarok. Vanaheim will also be open for those with campervan tickets. Please note, if you are arriving by train, the arrivals shuttle from Tamworth train station does not run on Wednesday.

If you’re looking for sold out tickets like VIP or campervan passes, BLOODSTOCK has a new exclusive secondary ticketing partner, Tixel, where you can maybe still find what you’re looking for. Simply set an alert for notification if your tickets of choice become available, or pre-authorise your card in advance, so no need for constant checking back. Tixel also allows you to safely re-sell tickets to a new home if plans have changed. You can sell ALL ticket types, including instalment plan purchases, plus any tickets sold via Ticketmaster or other third party ticket outlets. The new deal helps BLOODSTOCK streamline all resale tickets into one place to guarantee the safety of the sale, avoiding social media scam bots and rip-off pricing. It’s a very simple process for the customer and most importantly, it’s a trusted platform. Click through to https://tixel.com/uk/bloodstock-tickets for more information on how it works.

Standard weekend tickets for BLOODSTOCK, priced at £185 (+ booking fee) are available now in the 2024 ticket store. You can also snap up limited day tickets, child tickets (mini moshers under 4 yrs can come for free!), and if you want all the BLOODSTOCK you can get, add-on early arrival for an extra day of camping on Wednesday too. Early Bird, VIP, and campervan tickets are sold out.

BLOODSTOCK’s 2024 Ronnie James Dio main stage headliners are AMON AMARTH, OPETH, and ARCHITECTS. Across the weekend you can also expect to see CLUTCH, HATEBREED, CARCASS, ENSLAVED, MALEVOLENCE, SATYRICON, ROTTING CHRIST, SYLOSIS, WHITECHAPEL, DEICIDE, GRAND MAGUS, DESERT STORM, THE VINTAGE CARAVAN, SOEN, GREEN LUNG, COMBICHRIST, XENTRIX, EXIST IMMORTAL, ETERNAL CHAMPION, GROVE STREET, MIMI BARKS, CRYPTA, FORBIDDEN, NERVOSA, BEAST IN BLACK, KORPIKLAANI, UNLEASH THE ARCHERS, FLOGGING MOLLY, SEPTIC FLESH, IGORRR, RUIJIN, GROVE STREET, UNPEOPLE, NIGHT FLIGHT ORCHESTRA, HELLRIPPER, INFECTED RAIN, CULTURA TRES, SADUS, LUDOVICO TECHNIQUE, BURNER, RED RUM, EVERGREY, RAISED BY OWLS, TAILGUNNER, SOUTH OF SALEM, and ANKOR amongst others with yet more still to be announced.

Get full festival information over at bloodstock.uk.com.  BLOODSTOCK will take place at Catton Park, Derbyshire on 8th-11th August 2024.

Viking photo credit – Katja Ogrin

Crowd shot photo credit – Chris Bethell

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