Download Festival attendees urged to take off smartwatches to prevent moshpits from triggering emergency alerts

14 June, 2025

Attendees at Download Festival have been urged to remove their smartphones to prevent moshpits from triggering emergency alerts. 

The metal festival is being held this weekend at Donington Park in Leicestershire, with Green Day, Sleep Token and KoRn all playing headline sets on the main stage. 

Local police, however, have asked all festival-goers to consider turning their smartwatches and other devices to airplane mode or to disable their emergency alerts to avoid an overload of 999 alerts being sent during moshpits. 

Leicestershire police wrote this week that “in previous years, due to wearable tech issues, we saw a rise of nearly 700 extra 999 calls in a weekend”. 

Download Festival starts this weekend. In previous years, due to wearable tech issues, we saw a rise of nearly 700 extra…

Posted by Leicestershire Police on Wednesday, June 11, 2025

“All those calls had to be assessed…to ensure there is no threat, risk or harm, taking our contact handlers away from answering true emergency calls.” 

Police explained that the physical intensity of crowds at Download caused devices to “assume” that there had been “a collision” and the crash detection feature can send an alert to emergency services as a result. If a device does make an accidental 999 call, fans are asked to stay on the line or answer callbacks to “let us know you are safe”. 

As well as the headliners, Weezer, Sex Pistols featuring Frank Carter, Jimmy Eat World, Poppy, Loathe, Jerry Cantrell, McFly, Within Temptation, Eagles Of Death Metal, The Darkness, Spiritbox, Meshuggah, Steel Panther, Cradle Of Filth and Alien Ant Farm are all also on this year’s bill. 

Recently, the festival has come under fire over their policy that prohibiting trans women from using women’s bathrooms, and trans men from using men’s facilities. 

NOAHFINNCE, who came out as a trans man in 2017, and Pinkshift hit out against the festival, pointing out that it “put[s] trans people in danger”. Witch Fever also called the policy “a complete fuckin’ tragedy”. 

The policy outlined by Download organisers appears to relate to the controversial UK Supreme Court ruling on April 16, in which judges unanimously ruled that the legal definition of a woman is based on biological sex under the Equality Act. 

In response, Download confirmed to NME in a statement that it would provide gender-neutral facilities, adding: “At the heart of Download is acceptance – we stand with all members of our community and want everyone to feel safe, supported and welcome at the festival. 

“We want to reassure all of our customers that at Download, the majority of toilets will be gender neutral and available to all. There will also be single sex toilets provided. Download Festival has always been and remains for everyone.” 

“We sincerely apologise that a previous communication on this was not clear. We are looking forward to seeing you at Download this year.” 

Witch Fever and Zand later responded by arguing the statement didn’t go far enough by not establishing whether EHRC guidelines would still be followed for single-sex facilities. Although it later emerged from others who had been working with the festival to rectify the issue that the toilets weren’t going to be policed, Download was criticised for not making this clearer. 

Shortly after Download’s statement, Lush also terminated their partnership with the festival. 

We spoke to festival organiser Andy Copping last November about the mindset of Download organisers going into 2025, and outlined the ways that the event wants to keep evolving. 

“We’ve always made a conscious decision to make Download accessible to the general populace,” he said. “That involves pushing the boundaries musically and giving the newer acts a chance. Because of that, we’ve seen the fans coming through getting younger too, year on year. There’ll always be a certain expectation of what people want to see at Download, so it’s about navigating that and delivering the best we can.” 

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