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!
Bloodstock Club Nights:
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 Saber, Space 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 Bloodstock-ers 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.
Bloodstock – Vikings trailer
\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.
https://shop.preo.cloud/bloodstock/bloodstock-2024
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.
Also, if you’ve not yet checked out Bloodstock’s new podcast, hosted by the inimitable Beez, head over to Spotify or Apple Podcasts and check out the episodes so far, including guests such as Clutch, Sylosis, Green Lung and more! You can also now find some of these episodes on the official Bloodstock YouTube channel.
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/bloodstock-podcast/id1736152286
https://www.youtube.com/@Bloodstockfestivals/podcasts
Bloodstock is also thrilled to announce a collaboration with Timothy Taylor’s Hopical Storm as the official Metal 2 The Masses sponsor for 2024. Expect to see them on site and lend their name to the Hopical Storm New Blood Stage! To celebrate the new partnership, Bloodstock’s very own S’tan popped by their brewery to greet the team… watch here.
Today also marks the first batch of bands selected to showcase their talent at 2024’s event, outside of the M2TM tour initiative.
2023’s Northern Ireland victors and ‘war-jazz’ thrashers, Acid Age will open Thursday’s Sophie Lancaster stage. They tell us “We love everything about M2TM. The exposure, photography, stage, lights and friends we made was more than satisfactory, but then we won and got to both attend and play Bloodstock 2023! We couldn’t believe it, Bloodstock is heavy metal Mecca. It’s where everyone comes together with a common goal, HEAVY FUCKING METAL! The sense of community at the festival is undeniable. Now that we have a chance to return and play the Sophie stage, we aim to show everyone why we are the best War-Jazz band in the world and we will do it for Sophie. See you in August.” Check out their video for ‘Slave Girl’ and get up to speed.
Selected from 600 email submissions, on Friday’s Hopical Storm New Blood stage expect to see Scottish thrash squad Disposable, Leicester’s prog metal outfit Final Coil and Scottish rockers She Burns Red.
Saturday’s bill will feature London industrial noiseniks Biomechanimal, Herts heavyists Praetorian and metalcore squad, Lost to Light.
Sunday’s line up includes Brummie rockers Straight For The Sun, Cambridge metallers Akkadian and Yorkshire blackened death outfit, Sathamel.
In other 2024 Bloodstock news, Opeth headline set on Friday night will be a fan-voted set! Opeth mainman, Mikael Akerfeldt explains in his inimitable dry humoured way: “This boils down to YOU voting for your favourite Opeth songs, culled from a list that we’ve put together (ie: songs that we know/believe/hope we can play fairly well). There are a few rarities in there, a few ”hits” and a few ”whatever” songs to choose from. Depending on our set length, we’ll put together a nice list of the top-voted songs that adds up to match the stage-time in question. Have fun! Be gentle! Thanks for participating!” Check out Opeth’s Spotify Playlist to remind yourself of the choices and vote for your Top 10 picks here. Voting ends 17th May.
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdjvZMcd7tEhWIMuv2zfwg4FB-FQuudzKTwGPcBXEYMnaOPpQ/viewform
From 1st May, you can also utilise Bloodstock’s click & collect’ service to pre-order your favourites online from the 2024 merchandise range! Pre-purchase your favourite t-shirt or grab the 2024 beer mug without fear of your size or design being already sold out on site. Pre-order here and simply collect at the arena merch stall on the weekend, knowing your item is guaranteed. All ‘click and collect’ items in the store will be clearly marked with a yellow C&C badge. Maybe you want that BOA hoodie for when the sun goes down, so order, then collect from the merch stall to save a trip back to your tent. In a ‘click & collect’ exclusive, if you order over £100 of items via this method, you get 10% off, and over £200 gets 15% off. Mark your calendar and head over on 1st May to grab your swag.
Also, if you’ve not yet checked out Bloodstock’s new podcast, hosted by the inimitable Beez, head over to Spotify or Apple Podcasts and check out the episodes so far, including guests such as Clutch, Sylosis, Green Lung and more! You can also now find some of these episodes on the official Bloodstock YouTube channel.
https://www.youtube.com/@Bloodstockfestivals/podcasts
Lastly, 2024 club nights are rolling out rapidly. 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! If none of these nights are near you, more events will be announced soon for June & July.
Standard weekend tickets for Bloodstock, priced at £185 (+ booking fee) are available now in the 2024 ticket sto
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 With More Still To Be Announced.
Get full festival information over at https://www.bloodstock.uk.com. Bloodstock will take place at Catton Park, Derbyshire on 8th-11th August 2024.