Showsec has secured the festival since it's inception in 2003, this year supplying over 600 trained and licensed staff. They ensured the safety and enjoyment of 75,000 rock fans through three nights of music from the leading rock acts, headlined including Faith No More, Slipknot and Def Leppard.
Showsec operations director Simon Battersbsy commented: "The new site brought new challenges, but was a better site for the crowd and for us to work on. Download attracts really keen music fans who like any festival want to move from stage to stage to enjoy the music. Our aim is to facilitate this with ease of movement and minimal stress. The new site engendered itself to this festival: it provided great arenas with wide sightlines and was therefore suited to comfortable crowd management.
"We worked with Mojo Barriers on a new front-of-stage barrier design which worked very well. There was a central finger barrier with partial secondary barrier which combined to prevent lateral motion and surges from the back."
(Jim Evans)
