Download Festival 2026 rumours: 13 artists we think will play festival - ahead of Monday's grand reveal

The long, agonising wait is finally coming to an end. All eyes are on this Monday (November 3), which is when we expect the first massive line-up announcement for Download Festival 2026 to drop.

The Donington rumour mill has gone into absolute overdrive, and while some of the whispers are just wishful thinking, others are starting to look like near-certainties. With the festival expanding to four days in 2026, this year's line-up could once again be a mix of returning legends, modern metal titans making the big step up, and a few exciting "first-timer" bookings that are sure to be a huge hit with the Donington faithful.

We’ve been applying our own loose methodology to sift through the noise; tracking the line-ups for the major European festivals in June 2026, you can start to follow the breadcrumbs. When a massive act is confirmed to be in Germany the weekend before, or in Belgium the weekend after, it’s a simple matter of logistics.

We've been connecting those dots, as have a lot of you on the Download Festival subreddit, looking at who has a new album to promote, and filtering out the acts who are already confirmed to be elsewhere.

So here it is - our final throw of the hat into the prediction ring. We’ve also noticed that several key "friends" and musical collaborators of a true Donington icon could all be on the bill on the same day, so if the line-up falls into place as we suspect, the stage could be set for a truly emotional, all-star tribute to the late Prince of Darkness, Ozzy Osbourne.

It all hinges on who else is announced, but the potential is certainly there - but for one final time, who do we think will be announced on Monday for Download 2026?