Q&A: Bloodstock director Vicky Hungerford – the boss of booking

Featured image: Abbi Draper

aAh! Magazine caught up with the boss of booking for Bloodstock, the woman who has all of metal’s biggest names in her phonebook and is the reason people come back to the festival year after year: Vicky Hungerford.

Bloodstock is big for you! How long have you been doing the booking for it?

Since 2003, the second year, I’ve been booking bands and have done it ever since! I love it, it’s my favourite thing. It’s hard work but I love a challenge.

What draws you to book an artist? You have your big headliners, but you also welcome so many smaller bands onto the New Blood stage. What draws you to them?

All sorts of things. I look at genres, I look at who has albums coming out, who I think could be the next up-and-coming band. That’s what we have Metal 2 the Masses for! Bloodstock books heavy metal, so lots of people try to pigeonhole the festival as an ‘extreme event’, but we never were that. We started as a power metal festival. My ethos has always been booking the best of heavy metal so that we get to bring 20,000 people to the field.

Who has been your favourite you’ve ever booked?

Oh god, that’s really hard. I’ve had so many over the years! I mean Slaughter to Prevail is one of my favourite bands, so I feel very humble to be able to book a band that I personally love. But then we have also had some icons here like Motörhead and Alice Cooper. We’ve had Rob Zombie and Machine Head. I remember when I first booked Gojira, they were on at 1 in the afternoon, and now I look at them as these enormous headliners! Seeing all of these bands develop – and I’ve got so many favourites – I just feel so spoiled!

Bloodstock is so important to the metal community, and it has definitely cemented itself as a staple in the scene. What does it mean to have people return year after year? And do you get people asking to play the festival?

I just love it. I love people coming to me and asking to play the festival. We are very supportive of [young bands], so we make sure that they do get a chance to play with Metal 2 the Masses. It means the world that anybody not just wants to come to the festival but wants to actually play it. I’m always humbled by that.

Every year, you announce next year’s line-up mid-festival. How hard is it to keep that quiet from Wednesday all the way through to Friday?

It’s so hard. I’ve already booked the first headliner for 2028, which means I cannot tell anyone until next August! I’m keeping secrets for months on end, and it’s crazy. But my favourite part of the festival is when the announcement comes and I get to see all of the fans’ reactions. We only started doing it a few years ago, but I do try to get the headliners and a bunch of other bands locked in because it’s such a good feature. You’re buying your ticket, and you know who is playing. It’s a massive bonus.

What is your favourite aspect about Bloodstock?

It’s just seeing all of the fun. I often stand side-stage and look out onto the crowd. I love seeing happy people, crowd-surfing. To me, that is everything. That is the whole reason that I do this. You know people come up to me all of the time and say, ‘This is our holiday. We can’t afford to go away, and Bloodstock is what we do for a few days’. That’s everything to hear that.

And finally, Vicky, what colour milk do you drink?

I am a semi-skimmed drinker. My husband is a skimmed milk drinker. I cannot comprehend how anyone can drink it, I say to him ‘You know, you might as well just have water’. It’s just so wrong. It’s green, and everyone should drink green.

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