Thursday, May 29, 2025
It's what you've all been waiting for - it's time to select your Download Festival 2025 shift preferences!
There are 34 different volunteer shift patterns to choose from at Download Festival this year. Please make sure you indicate a preference for each shift as PAAM won't let you save your preferences until you have!
You have until midday on Sunday 1st June to select your shift preferences, please make sure you have submitted your preferences before this date as after this, shifts will be allocated based on availability.
Following 1st June it will take us several days to process shift preferences and allocate shift patterns for everyone joining us at Download Festival. Please note, we're currently onsite at Forbidden Forest so the shift allocation process may take us slightly longer than usual, although we’ll work as fast as we can to confirm your shifts!
Once we have allocated your Download Festival shifts, we'll send another email letting you know it's time to login and find out your shift pattern and start planning your festival schedule!
If you applied to be a buggy driver a few weeks ago, you can see if your application has been successful by clicking the Download Festival Info button on the Overview page of your PAAM account. If you have been assigned a buggy shift pattern it will show under 'Your groups' at the top of the page and you'll be exempt from volunteer shift preference selection so there's no need to you to enter your shift preferences. We were oversubscribed with applications to join the buggy team, so if you missed out we hope there will be some Dog Squad, Tower and Gate shift patterns you like just as much!
If you're joining us at Download Festival with friends and would like to have the same shift pattern, please ensure their name and email address are listed in the Friends section of your PAAM profile so we can ensure you have the same shift pattern!
Don't forget to check that your friends have listed your name and email address in their Friends section too!
Please also make sure that you don't have any friends' names from previous festivals still in your friends list as this can slow down the shift allocation process if we're searching to match you with volunteers who haven't signed up this year!
You'll then need to make sure you and your friends input the same shift preferences in the same order.
This is your last chance to update the Friends section of your profile before Download Festival shifts are allocated!
Shift allocation is a manual process and the part which takes the longest is matching all of the friend groups.
Every year, we waste hours during the allocation process searching for volunteers who have been listed in a friends list but are not signed up to the event.
Therefore, PLEASE ensure you only have volunteers who have applied to Download 2025 listed in your friends list.
If you have other friends volunteering at other festivals later in the year, please remove them from your friends list before Download and then add them to your friends list before the event they’ll be joining you at.
Please also double check that you don’t have any friends from previous years still listed in your friends list!
If everyone only lists friends who are volunteering at Download this year in their friends list, everyone’s shifts will be confirmed hours, if not days earlier!
To choose your Download Festival shift preferences you need to:
Once we've allocated shift patterns, your shift pattern will show as your Group at the top of your Download Festival Info page.
We are a very small team at Hotbox HQ and we're currently onsite at Forbidden Forest so whilst we're working hard to allocate shifts as quickly as we can there may be some delay in responses to emails and messages! Whilst we're busy allocating shifts you can drop into our Facebook group for help and advice from our previous staff and volunteers!
Shift preference selection can be a little overwhelming if it's your first time joining as there are so many different shift options to choose from! We've listed our top tips for working out your order of shift preferences below:
For further information about how shifts are allocated please read the information within the shift planner PDF.
A very small number of extra places to volunteer at Download Festival have just opened up! We've reopened applications for Download Festival in PAAM so if you have a mate who would like to come along too - let them know they can apply now!
If there is anything you would like to ask or you would just like to chat with us about, the easiest way is to...
You can connect with us @hotboxevents on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn
If you would like to chat with others who have joined us before head to our Facebook Group
On Facebook you will find new and returning staff and volunteers chatting about what it is like to join us at festivals, arranging to share lifts, asking and answering questions about working at festivals and making new friends!
If you have not joined us at a festival before and are wondering what it is like, check out some of our staff and volunteer interviews!
In the interviews you will get to hear from those who have joined us talking about how they found their shifts, how they felt they were looked after by the Hotbox team, what it was like working solo for the first time, taking on more responsibility year on year, and even how the experience and confidence gained has helped with career progression away from festivals!
Another way to see what joining us is like is to check out some of our festival photos!
In our festival photo galleries, you will find thousands of photos covering our festival history over the past twenty years!
It's totally normal to be anxious before coming to a festival, particularly if you're coming solo! We get hundreds of messages every year from people wanting to join us but nervous about doing it, so we promise you're not alone! We're a very friendly bunch so if there's anything we can do to reduce your anxiety please get in touch! Try joining our Facebook Group to make friends with others before the festival - there are even a few WhatsApp groups that have been set up too!
If you have specific questions about joining us at festivals try our festival FAQs!
Our festival FAQs are regularly updated and packed full of answers to the questions we are usually asked, plus lots of handy hints and tips about working at festivals.
We usually send an email newsletter about once a month, if you would like to keep up to date you can subscribe!
If you would like to drop us an email it's info@hotboxevents.com
You can reach our office by phone on the numbers below...
Tel: 01252849600 (UK) select option 2 for Hotbox Events
Tel: +441252849600 (International) select option 2 for Hotbox Events
