When Legion Festival, Australia’s first ever fan-funded heavy music festival, was announced, it was instantly met with excitement. For a while there, it seemed as though this crazy dream could actually become a reality.
Organiser John Sankey, drummer for Devil You Know, had clearly learnt from the mistakes of Soundwave festival, which Legion intended to replace, and was committed to total transparency as well as opting to crowdfund the event.
It was basically a no-risk proposition for all involved. Punters can pledge to a crowdfunding campaign to secure their ticket and the festival only goes ahead if the campaign reaches its goal, otherwise no pledges are processed.
For the first few days, a healthy stream of pledges was flooding in, but things soon slowed and fans began wondering whether the campaign would be able to hit its ambitious target of just over $3 million before its 25th January deadline.
Yesterday, the inevitable finally happened and organisers announced that the festival would not go ahead in 2016. Instead, the festival’s inaugural event would take place next year, with rescheduled dates.
In a lengthy statement, Sankey cited several reasons for Legion’s shift to 2017, including the short time frame that organisers gave themselves to secure enticing headliners, venues, and the correct visas for any potential lineup acts.
Sankey also cited issues with obtaining council permits in time and the issues posed as a result of holding the festival on the Easter long weekend, when many music fans would have family commitments and when travel costs spike.
However, looking back, one of the biggest oversights made by Legion organisers is the fact that many refunds from Soundwave 2016 are yet to be processed in the wake of the debacle that ensued following the festival’s cancellation.
“To Legion’s credit, they’ve done a stellar job of listening to their fans and taking their complaints and criticism on board.”As readers will recall, after Soundwave 2016 collapsed, a dispute arose between Soundwave founder AJ Maddah and ticketing provider Eventopia, with each party passing the buck on who actually owed refunds to the fans who’d purchased tickets.
Eventually, Eventopia caved and took responsibility for issuing refunds to ticket-holders, promising fans the money would be returned within 21 business days, after they send in a special refund request to the ticket provider.
Other fans, meanwhile, opted to get their money back via bank chargebacks, though these weren’t always successful. With so many fans still out of pocket from Soundwave 2016, it came as little surprise they were reticent or simply didn’t have the money to support Legion.
The fans certainly made it known on social media, with many fans responding to news of Legion’s various activities with comments indicating they were still waiting on securing the money spent on Soundwave and wouldn’t be pledging until it’s returned.
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Organisers even acknowledged as much in their statement, writing, “Fans were having trouble justifying the expense given that some Soundwave refunds are yet to be processed.”
“Although unlike a normal ticketing situation that takes payment immediately, where our crowdfunding pledges do not have any funds processed at all, the delay on refunds have still had a major impact on people pledging.”
“By extending the campaign we know we have a large number of supporters who are right behind the event once their refunds come in.” To Legion’s credit, they’ve done a stellar job of listening to their fans and taking their complaints and criticism on board.
“It’s a brand new model that was always going to take a bit of time to explain to the industry but we knew there was no way we could ask people to buy tickets, then change the goal posts if we have any chance of making this sustainable”, said Mark Spillane from Legion HQ in a statement.
The debut of Legion Music Festival is set to proceed in 2017 with three major East Coast open air shows, plus two mini-festival club shows in Perth and Adelaide.
According to fans, Eventopia have begun processing refunds and it remains to be seen what impact this will have on Legion’s crowdfunding campaign, which readers can check via Pozible over here.
