My first festival and what a experiance it was, from seeing Unearth open my first festival was great fun! seeing Killswitch with Howard,Bullet For My Valenine,AC/DC,Stone Sour and many more, was a great year, the campsite I remember someone with a megaphone in Blue camp every morning shouting 'Good morning Donington' and 'Get your tits out' own up if your on the forums!

Has to be seeing Slash for the first time! Other good memories, being out my face and going on the haunted house ride and almost being brought to tears cause I was so scared...

My best memory was getting on my mates shoulders during AC/DC and being absoloutly amazed by the size of the crowd. I still don't think I've ever seen so many people in one place at the same time. 
 
Edit: oh and shaking Ivan moodys hand during the FFDP set. 

Was thinking about this alot the other day while bored at work. Made the day go so much quicker.
 
2010 was my first festival but not only that, my first actual gig in general! So easily the best memory of this year was that first walk from the campsite to the arena. Can still remember that for the first part all you can hear is the excited babble of everyone walking around you...but then as you get nearer you can hear the first bands playing and that feeling was like nothing else I've ever experienced to be honest, was awesome. Seeing the sheer size of the festival for the first time can't really be described in words. Anyway was 36 Crazyfists I was hearing I believe...me and my mates got some drinks, devoured them, and headed into the crowd for Killswitch Engage. Incidentally that is still the roughest crowd I have been in!

Other than that, seeing one of my friends made semi-famous on the big screens during Slash was a pretty cool moment, if only because one of the hands in the corner of the screen is mine.

Yes, I spent ages working it out...  

Stone Sour were the highlight for me, remember Sunday was a wet one (same as last year), fingers crossed for this one

We were camped in green in 2010...I can't remember what night it was, but I was particularly tired so got in my tent to get some sleep, just as I was drifting off I heard one of the girls in our group shout "IT'S PEANUT BUTTER JELLY TIME!" so I dived out of my tent and there was a lad dressed as a banana dancing down the path with a line of people following him while we all sang peanut butter jelly time.
 
Surreal but amazing

Raff 

We were camped in green in 2010...I can't remember what night it was, but I was particularly tired so got in my tent to get some sleep, just as I was drifting off I heard one of the girls in our group shout "IT'S PEANUT BUTTER JELLY TIME!" so I dived out of my tent and there was a lad dressed as a banana dancing down the path with a line of people following him while we all sang peanut butter jelly time. 

Surreal but amazing 

 
Im offended to be called a girl 

I distinctly remember is was Ash that shouted it, well that's who I heard anyway

AC/DC!!!
 
Slash
 
Seeing Steel Panther (people climbing on top of an Ice Cream van!)
 
Meeting Dommin
 
Billy Idol
 
Rage Against The Machine
 
The Rain that came on Sunday
 
And last but definitely not least met some of the best people ever!! Roll on this year!

Can't remember much about from Thursday to Saturday, think I was pissed the whole weekend have seen photo's of me wearing other people's shirts.
 
My wife turned up on the Sunday and so had to take here around the site so she could see why I make such a fuss about Download, I guess the musical highlight has to be Airbourne, despite being scared ****less that we would fall from the top of the stage

mickg 

I guess the musical highlight has to be Airbourne, despite being scared ****less that we would fall from the top of the stage

This was insane. I can't believe he didn't fall. It was raining sideways at that point! I reckon he got halfway up that tower and thought "crap why did I think this was a good idea?"

Watching Billy Idol in the pouring rain will stick with me for a while, to be sure.

I saw acdc at wembley and they were amazing but At DL they were even better,I was right down the front! 1st time I saw 5FDP gutted they have pulled out this year.

Getting burgled by the worst burglars in the world (they gave us a free beer cooler and took nothing)
RATM having to stop midway through song due to the craziness of the crowd
Feeling like **** after the pissing rain then Slash arriving on stage and bringing the sun.

Having attended each of the first 5 Downloads, I'd missed 2008 and 2009 - '08 in protest of the god-awful line-up and even worse new festival layout, and '09 because I had a baby on the way and was truly skint.  The lack of money continued into 2010, and having been told by the missus that there was no way I was allowed to attend Download unless she could come too, I was resigned to missing yet another Download festival!  That was, until a very successful car-boot sale followed by the acquisition of 2 weekend tickets off ebay, BOTH for HALF PRICE, making it possible to attend just days before the festival!  We even managed to get the funds to bring our step-son.
Due to the last minute organising of it, I could only get the Friday off work, so travelled up first thing Friday morning to set up camp.  
Enjoyed all of the mainstage acts on the Friday while catching up with mates and having a few drinks... My step-son found his pocket money avenue for the weekend in the cup collecting, so everyone was a winner!
Saturday caught HellYeah before stumbling across Rolo Tomassi's set, who were quite good to watch.  FFDP, Lamb of God and Megadeth were great, Deftones were OK but would have watched the England match, but for the walk - wasn't prepared to go back to the village for it - and RATM were awesome!!  Had a great Sat night getting pissed too.
Sunday I enjoyed the sun in the morning and early afternoon, but decided to spend that time packing our camp down instead of staying for the last night.  By the time we'd loaded the car and got to the arena, the clouds were beginning to form.  Eventually the heavens opened, and suddenly it wasn't quite as fun any more!   Didn't stop me and mates getting pissed though and having a good time (the missus was on drive-home duty).

Friday - crowd clap along during AC/DCs Shoot To Thrill. Amazing to see such a huge crowd clap along in unison. I remember looking around the crowd just feeling stunned. Having my wife and kids with me 29yrs after my first AC/DC at donington in '81 was brilliant.
Saturday - Y&T in the tent. I hadn't seen them since the 80's. Realised just how much Dave Meniketti is under-rated. Since then I've been to see Y&T a couple of times, I wish I had seen them a lot more.
Sunday - Slash & Myles Kennedy on the main stage, Billy Idol in the rain. Both were superb. Stone Sour headlining the 2nd stage rounded off an amazing weekend.

After standing in the sunshine and then the pouring rain and then the cold, all day, I saw Aerosmith perform Dream On and I Don't Want To Miss A Thing!   ...... 
I was front row, it was an amazing experience finally doing something I had dreamed of! 
Bit of a shi*ty blurred pic but I wasn't really focusing on my photography to be honest! Best experience of my life! 

For me it has to be the moment when ACDC played Thunderstruck, my dad got me into ACDC when I was younger and that was his favourite song, I always said id take him to download if ACDC played but sadly he died before it happened, so when thunderstruck kicked in it was very emotional. 

2010 was my second year and my first time of going alone. I was supposed to have taken my nephew but he was unable to make it. I only got £110 minus postage and fees for the spare ticket on ebay so that was a bad start.
 
My solar powered wheelie bin fridge made it's first outing to DL and, after over an hour remonstrating with gate staff on why it was not A. Stolen, B. A fire hazard C. A bomb, was delayed by lots of festivalers curious to know what it was and how it worked. Everyone was massively friendly and even more so once at Family camp. I met lots of great people for the first time there who have made me always look forward to returning to Donington regardless of the line up.
 
But the line up 2010: ACDC were my biggest draw. While TCV droned on, I managed to get right down to the barrier to the left of the ACDC stage and was rewarded with a mind (and ear) blowing set. I have some great photos with the sunset behind Angus on the catwalk. The finale of "For those about to Rock" explained why my spot was so easy to get to. I swear those cannons were still ringing in my ears on the Monday when I left!
Slash was amazing with Myles Kennedy really putting his stamp on the tunes I'd been listening to up to the event.
 
The downer was the weather following Slash. Billy Idol would have been great, had I not had to head back to camp to get changed. I missed a few bands as a result and despite Airbourne's acrobatics lifting my spirits a bit, the mood was dampened and I regretably gave up after Love in an Elevator by Aerosmith.

Some great memories of 2010.
 
Friday:
TCV - I seem to be about the only one, but I absolutely loved it! Something a little different for Download, admittedly, but a great rock band on top form jamming together - I guess you either like that kind of thing or you don't! Also, being too young to have seen Zeppelin, finally seeing the last remaining living member that I'd never seen (having seen Page (with Jason Bonham) and Plant on their own tours in the 80s).
 
AC/DC - First time I'd seen them since MOR '91, and first time at all for my gf, and they were superb. After all these years, they certainly know how to put on a show, and seeing them at Donington again (which I thought would never happen) was something special.
 
Saturday:
Wasn't well on the Saturday (nothing to do with drinking, either!), but still some outstanding sets from the likes of Megadeth, and in particular Y&T, a band I'd been waiting about quarter of a century to see, and who certainly didn't disappoint! Finishing the day watching Breed 77, and an absolutely storming version of Zombie that will stick with me forever.
 
Sunday:
Rain! Lots of rain! Before that arrived, though, I remember standing in the sun, in front of an unjustifiably empty stage, watching The Damned Things, just feet away from Scott Ian - that was pretty cool! 
 
Then came the rain, and what I think might be the most surreal experience of my life - standing in a field full of soaking wet metalheads watching Billy Idol skating around on what looked like a stage a couple of inches deep in water - fair play to him, he put on a fantastic performance, and his energy and commitment under the circumstances (and given the fact that he's considerably older than he was before he was as old as he is now!) was incredible.
 
After that came Motorhead, and I think the best Motorhead set I've ever seen (and I've seen them a few times), for me anyway - just what was needed in that weather, and I almost headbanged my hair dry again! By the end of it I was dog tired, still suffering the effects of whatever illness had hit me the day before, freezing cold, far too wet to be able to roll or light a cigarette, a little dazed, but very happy. Not long after that we cut our losses with the weather, our discomfort overcoming our desire to see Aerosmith (which wasn't huge - not big fans of them anyway) and headed off early (having loaded the car in the morning ready to leave that night anyway) to find a Travelodge, a hot shower, and comfy bed, and some warmth and dryness.
 
Even with the weather, and not being too well, it was still a great weekend.