Three days, 20,000 people and a line-up stretching from hardcore and metalcore to some of the biggest names in heavy metal. Reload Festival 2026 turned the small German town of Sulingen into a very loud place for one long weekend. For me, it also meant three days of trying to capture everything happening both on and in front of the stage.
Some festivals are all about scale. Others are about atmosphere. Reload manages to sit somewhere comfortably in between.
With 20,000 visitors, 2026 marked the biggest edition of Reload Festival so far, but the festival still feels surprisingly close to the action. The stages are big, the productions are serious and the names on the bill would not look out of place at festivals several times its size. Yet once you step away from the main stage, it doesn't take long before you're back among the people who make the festival what it is.
And that is exactly where much of the story can be found.
More than what happens on stage
When photographing a festival, the obvious temptation is to spend the entire weekend running from one photo pit to another. Reload certainly gave enough reasons to do exactly that.
Judas Priest made their first appearance at the festival. Arch Enemy returned to Sulingen with Lauren Hart now fronting the band. In Flames were back for their fourth Reload appearance. Around them was a line-up including Lamb of God, Airbourne, Black Label Society, Alestorm, Stick To Your Guns, Agnostic Front, Imminence, Paleface Swiss and plenty more.
But a festival isn't just a collection of concerts.
It's the crowd waiting at the barrier before the next band starts. Someone crowdsurfing towards the stage. Friends sitting down for a few minutes between shows. Dust hanging in the air above thousands of people. Security catching another crowdsurfer. The expressions in the front row when a favourite song starts.
Those moments often tell just as much about a festival as the artists on stage.
Welcome to the dust
There was one element that became impossible to ignore during Reload 2026: the dust.
Lots of it.
After thousands of feet had crossed the festival grounds, every moving crowd seemed capable of creating its own small dust cloud. From a photography perspective, that wasn't necessarily a bad thing. Backlight, silhouettes and a layer of dust in the air can completely change an image.
For everyone actually breathing it in all weekend, the experience might have been slightly less romantic.
It became part of the visual identity of the weekend. Add smoke, stage lights, flames and some increasingly tired festival faces, and Reload gradually started looking different with every passing hour.
From daylight to fire
During the day, photography at Reload is often about movement and people. As daylight disappears, the character of the festival changes. Suddenly the lights become part of the performance.
This year's larger productions offered plenty to work with. Flames, strobes, video walls, smoke and carefully designed lighting turned some sets into complete visual productions. Airbourne brought their usual physical chaos. Judas Priest delivered the kind of theatrical metal show you would expect from a band with more than five decades behind them. Arch Enemy combined movement with an intense stage production, while In Flames eventually closed the entire festival with fireworks filling the sky behind them.
For a photographer, those are the moments where a show can go from simply documenting a performance to trying to capture one image that represents the entire set.
Sometimes everything lines up. Sometimes the light changes half a second too early. That's part of shooting live music.
Three days from the photo pit
Over the three days, Reload moved through very different corners of heavy music. Hardcore, punk, metalcore, deathcore, melodic death metal, classic heavy metal and enough unexpected turns in between kept both the stages and the photo pits busy.
The following three stories will take a closer look at each festival day individually, combining the shows with the moments happening around them.
Not every band needs a technical breakdown. Not every photograph needs a long explanation. Some images simply work better when they are allowed to speak for themselves.
What I want to show with this series is what Reload Festival 2026 looked and felt like from my side of the barrier.
The crowds. The lights. The dust. The photographers fighting for their angles. The quiet moments between sets. And, of course, three days of very loud music.
This was Reload Festival 2026. And this is what I brought home from Sulingen.
Continue the story
Day One: From the first bands of the weekend to Arch Enemy closing the Impericon Mainstage.
Day Two: A packed Friday building towards Airbourne and the first Reload appearance of Judas Priest.
Day Three: One final run through the photo pit, ending with In Flames, fireworks and the last images of Reload 2026.