It’s been a full working week since Legion Music Fest launched its crowd funding campaign. Here’s what we’ve learnt, what you need to know and where the campaign is at.
- For those unaware, Legion Music Fest was first announced when Soundwave Festival announced it was cancelled. The organisers wasted no time in announcing a new festival literally hours after AJ Maddah cancelled Soundwave Festival on 17 December 2014.
- The following day, Devil You Know (originally announced for Soundwave Festival 2016) was announced as the first band for Legion Music Fest, which makes sense as the band’s drummer is also Legion’s main organiser.
- Fast-forward to 22 December 2014 and Legion announces OzTix as the official ticketing partner. Shortly after, Global Event Management and Unbreakable International are also announced as partners.
- 23 December 2014 saw the announcement of an Australian band stage, which was received will all kinds of support.
- 26 December 2014 and Love Police are announced as another partner.
- Pozible are announced as the platform for running the crowd funding campaign on 28 December 2014.
- Just prior to the campaign launching in the New Year, Legion Music Fest dates were announced for Easter 2015. This was met with mixed response. Some welcomed the long weekend dates while it ruled others out due to Easter holidays and family commitments.
- The 2016 started off with Legion posting a teaser of a photo of one of the venues. The photo shows a lot of grass and open space.
- 4 January 2016 was the official launch of the crowd funding campaign. The campaign offered 8 rewards, with the most popular choices offering tickets to the national event. The target was $3.25 million with just 3 weeks to hit the golden number.
- Along with the Pozible campaign was the announcement of the first round of bands:
Devil You Know (USA)
Darkest Hour (USA)
Battlecross (USA)
Caligula’s Horse (AUS)
Darkc3ll (AUS)
Rick Dangerous And The Silkie Bantams (AUS)
- Later that day, Dream On Dreamer were announced, much to the delight of the post-hardcore contingent.
- Within 24 hours the campaign had raised $87,000. The crowd funder was off to a great start but with only 3 weeks to hit target, they needed to raise $154,761.91 per day.
- Most people didn’t understand that the money didn’t come out of their bank accounts unless the target was met. This seemed to be holding a lot of punters back from pledging.
- Another factor was the event was marked 18+ with age restrictions dropping to 15+ on 6 January 2016. And if you are under 15, you can now attend with a parent or guardian
- On the same day, more bands were announced:
DevilDriver (USA)
Frontline Assembly (CAN)
Aversions Crown (AUS)
- Closing off the band announcements for the first week were 28 Days, My Secret Circus, Horrorwood Mannequins and MofoIsDead.
- 8 January 2016 sees the first venue announced as the Melbourne Showgrounds. Cast your mind back to Soundwave Festival 2015, which was on a day where there were many other events occurring at the same time as the festival at the Melbourne Showgrounds. No trains were provided to the event because PTV claimed they needed 150 days notice, which Soundwave allegedly did not provide. So with this in mind and 79 days until the festival in Melbourne, we hope the organisers have kept this critical piece of information in mind.
- As at 1.00pm AEDT on 8 January 2016, the campaign was sitting at just over $173,000.
So what do you think heavy music lovers? Can the fans and bands mobilise and get this thing running or is time against them?
Legion Music Fest Tour Dates
Saturday 26 March 2016 – Melbourne
Sunday 27 March 2016 – Sydney
Monday 28 March 2016 – Brisbane
Friday 1 April 2016 – Adelaide
Saturday 2 April 2016 – Perth
