Since its launch in 2001, Bloodstock has grown from a one-day indoor metal festival held at Derby’s Assembly Rooms to the mammoth four-day extravaganza it is today. This field of screams has played host to such heavyweight headliners as Judas Priest, Slayer, Ghost, Lamb Of God, King Diamond and numerous others, right up to this year’s unholy trinity of bill-toppers Machine Head, Trivium and Gojira.
All that alone makes it the UK’s greatest metal festival. But there’s another reason why we love Bloodstock so much: Bin Jousting.
For the uninitiated, Bin Jousting is one part extreme sport, one part medieval re-enactment and about 12 parts the kind of drunken twattery you and your mates get up to after you’ve been kicked out of the pub. This insanity involves two people sitting on top of separate industrial-sized wheelie bins which are then pushed towards each other. If someone falls off, they lose. If neither person falls off, they wrestle until one of them does.
“It’s surreal how big it is,” says Bloodstock co-founder Adam Gregory. “People are so passionate about it. It’s almost more important to some of them than watching the bands.”
The roots of Bin Jousting are shrouded in mystery, though the sport - and we’re most definitely calling it a sport here - stretches back to at least the mid-2010s. It was reportedly the brainchild of a mad genius named Top Hat. Hammer reached out to this enigmatic figure but didn’t receive a reply (when we say ‘reached out’, we mean ‘sent a couple of half-arsed emails’). For years it would take place under the cover of of darkness on the festival campsites, until security came to disperse the crowds.
Adam says it came on his radar six or seven years ago via an unusual avenue. “And that was only because the guy that supplied us with the bins was invoicing us for quite a lot of money for damage,” he explains. “We couldn’t work out why we were getting these bills. So we tracked it for a couple of years, and then we discovered that there was this thing happening that we weren’t aware of.”
He describes what followed as “a battle of wills” between the festival organisers and the growing number of Bin Jousters. “We asked them to stop it,” he says. “We took the wheels off the bins, we chained them to the fences, we tried different things. They just found more ingenious ways of freeing the bins.”
In their defence, the organisers’ concerns weren’t unfounded. There were health and safety regulations to contend with, not mention the very real prospect of injuries.
“One guy was doing this illegally a few years ago, and he broke his leg in two places and had to be taken to hospital,” says Adam. “I think he’d only been onsite for 20 minutes. He emailed us on Monday, saying ‘Best weekend!’”
The two sides found a solution a couple of years ago. The Bloodstock team began working with Top Hat to make things safer for anyone who wanted to do it without losing its lunatic spirit. Crash mats now line the runway, the bins themselves have crash bars, reinforced tops and safety handles, while participants need to wear protective headgear and neck braces.
“I know it’s not as dangerous as it used to be, but it was a choice of doing it that way or not at all,” says Adam. “We wanted to embrace it without sucking the fun out of it.”
These days, Bin Jousting is as much part of Bloodstock as beer, burgers and a bloke wandering through the crowd dressed as Jesus. Even the bands are getting in on the action. Adam says that a member of one of last year’s headliners was spotted doing it. “I can’t say who it is cos it’ll probably get them in trouble,” he says.
At the moment, Bin Jousting is unique to Bloodstock. “But then so was Viking Rowing,” says Adam of the mosh pit phenomenon that began during Amon Amarth’s set at the festival back in 2009. “That’s a global phenomenon now.”
Like skateboarding and BMXing before it, Bin Jousting has officially gone legit. The bins themselves are sponsored by Fat Frank’s, the festival camping shop. Last year’s bins were bright orange. This year they’ve been tricked out with flames. “We’ve had brand new bins built,” says Adam. “It’s not a small amount of money that‘s gone into this.”
So what’s next? With Bloodstock celebrating its 25th anniversary next year, should we mark the occasion by lobbying for Bin Jousting to become a sport at the next Olympics? It can’t be any less ridiculous than dressage.
“I mean, they have martial arts at the Olympics, don’t they?” says Adam. “Why not International Bin Jousting?”
Bloodstock takes place at Catton Hall, Derbyshire from Aug 7-10. Buy Friday day tickets here
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