Bloodstock 2025 - what could the countdown be for?

By Nic Howells

For the last few days, Bloodstock Open Air has had fans investigating as a cryptic countdown themed in an ice motif has been posted to socials each day, leading up to this Thursday, Feb 20th. Bloodstock are by far one of the best communities for championing its announcements, and have an incredibly devoted fanbase that when the right band is on that bill, they turn out. That said, fans have been left in complete mystery, so we’re left with a docket of ideas as to what the icy countdown could be. Here are a few:

Additional Tickets

2025’s instalment of Bloodstock Open Air is completely sold out on weekend tickets, and day tickets are selling fast for each day, given high flying features by bands like Nailbomb on the Friday, as well as long awaited returns from all three days headliners. If there was an extra few tickets going, we have no doubt they’d be snapped up. That said, the site is what it is, Bloodstock has always been a medium sized festival and excelled in that field, how much more can they expand? This is somehow both the most and least likely.

A Second Event

Now we’ve had one major name in the festival scene expand to a further event already this year, as Outbreak have extended their reach down to London for this years instalment, as well as the standard two days in Manchester. Could Bloodstock be following suit? We’ve just said they can’t really expand the site much further, so what if they expand the time they’re in the zone for? Obviously it’s not uncommon for their to be a variety of events promoted under a brand (Warped Tour, for example). We’re not suggesting that Bloodstock is hitting the road, but they could have enough in the tank for another weekend on the calendar.

2026 Headliner

This is a long shot. A staple of Bloodstocks schedule is a huge announcement of bands at some point across the weekend. Doing that 6 months before this years festival has even started would be a bold move. Not that fans wouldn’t completely eat it up, but it might undercut the magnitude of this years sell out a little. OR, given they’ve had such a good year in sales, they might be gearing up for another big one.

Bloodstock's Instagram has been counting down for the past week

2025 Headliner Announcement

Alternatively, they might have got a big gun to add to this years line up. Perhaps an addition to one of the headliners sets? Trivium & Gojira are on 20 years of the Ascendancy and From Mars to Sirius albums respectively. Machine Head have just announced their new record ‘Unatoned’ (More on that later). Could we have some “Album in full” sets on hand for one of them? Maybe all three?

Body Count & Ice-T?

Now this is one that has really caught fire, and it’s a bit of an obvious link. It is common knowledge that Bloodstock fans have been hoping to bag that Body Count set for a few years now. Could this be the year the festival have finally pinned them down? Body Count were in very heavy rotation for touring last year, they currently don’t have anything lined up for the UK for Summer 2025. Could it be?

Theme of the Year

Every year Bloodstock has a theme. It’s been “wear pink” , it's been zombies, it’s been dinosaurs. Rarely is it so brand specific, but could this be the year of Game of Thrones or at a push, Vikings to take the helm? Both are a bit out of fashion vs their peaks, but the clientele of BOA would hardly complain.

SLAYER?

Now this is just wishful thinking. But Slayer were not included in the latest Download announcement. They are on deck for the Ozzy/Sabbath ‘Back to The Beginning’ lineup. Is there a possibility that Bloodstock has nailed them in for either next years bill (they’d be a squeeze for 2025), or could they be running a one off show similar to Korn & Limp Bizkit’s runs of open air shows? They went down a storm and Slayer could very much fill that role for this year.

Surely not… Rosenrot?

This is nigh on impossible. But Rammstein are celebrating 20 years of Rosenrot this year. Could the same point be made for them as what was just made for Slayer? Rammstein has been on a hiatus recently, and doing a one off in the UK is unlikely, as well as Rammstein having a longstanding link to Download and Andy Copping.

Site move (cry)

The ice and such could be a big hint that “Hell has frozen over”. As much as we’d like to believe it’s a sign of the biggest band announcements we’ve ever seen, it could be a sign the writing is on the wall. Bloodstock have always said that Catton Hall is their home, but given the height of popularity they’ve had recently, might they need something bigger? Say it ain’t so.

Conclusion

We won’t have long to wait until the countdown hits 0. Fans have been all over the theories as to what it could mean. None of the ones we’ve suggested are anything to sniff at. But there’s some we would really prefer to others…

Check back Thursday for the big news!