Once the dust settles, organisers can look back at a Download where the traffic, beer and good times rolled

IT was the 22nd Download festival at Donington Park this weekend, attracting some 75,000 fans and seemingly as popular ever, despite quietly evolving in many ways.

- ZENA HAWLEY

Since the first festival in 2003, I have covered the vast majority either by being there in person for one or all of the days or reporting on them remotely.

And I have to say, I found this year one of the easiest to navigate - both from a traffic and car parking view through to accessing the main areas inside the site.

Additionally, festival-goers generally seemed more chilled and the organisation from bands to beer seemed very slick.

I think the Download organisers, after trying many different things over many years, are really getting things right for customers and local residents.

Every year, no sooner has the dust settled and the last fan packed their tent although not everyone does that, preferring to abandon them the organisers are debriefing on how things went.

What went well? What needs to be altered? And more importantly, who are we booking to appear next year?

The weather played a big part in the overall feel-good factor this year.

Each day was relatively dry with just the odd heavy shower, but with a strong wind, any moisture soon dried up and in fact the area threatened to be a bit of a dust-bowl at times.

But festival director Jess Shields confessed to me she preferred it to be "dusty than muddy" and I can see her point, as dust usually means sunshine and that does bring out the best in people.

And more importantly, it physically brings people out of their tents into the fine weather to sit around drinking beer, listening to the music or taking part in the myriad of things there are to do at music festivals these days, including axe throwing, skate ramps, wrestling, fire cooking demos, yoga, eating competitions and RockFit.