EXCLUSIVE: Legion Organisers Reveal Festival Dates And Open Letter To Supporters

As support and momentum grows for Legion Festival, the festival's mastermind, Devil You Know's John Sankey, has penned an open letter to supporters with information regarding the festival's tour dates, crowdfunding details and what to expect from the upcoming artist announcements. 

Rising from the ashes of the cancelled Soundwave Festival, the festival will hit Melbourne on Saturday, 26 March, Sydney on Sunday, 27 March and Brisbane on Monday, 28 March. Adelaide and Perth will feature a smaller club mini-fest featuring some of the festival's acts, on Friday, 1 April and Saturday, 2 April, respectively.

Legion recently announced they would be keeping Australian music high on its list of priorities — head to legionmusicfest.com for more information as it emerges, or keep reading right here at theMusic.com.au.

Check out Sankey's open letter and video update below. 

Hey guys!

As I'm sure everyone can imagine Legion HQ has been crazy busy behind the scenes working around the clock to pull together this major music festival for you all in a little over a week... and over Christmas too! Yep, not ideal but due to the dedication, belief and massive support from all involved we are excited to start communicating some of our plans, our thinking and our goals. 

Let's face it, we all love the music festival experience. The way we consume music may come and go, but this will never change. It means a lot of things to a lot of people. Whether it's a rite of passage, discovering that new band that blows you away, a shared experience for you and a group of mates having a blast together, or purely as a way of getting to see that one act you have always wanted to see live. We have so many people contacting us saying they look forward all year to an event like this. The buzz, the sound, the smells?! and the pure feeling of loud, live, heavy music hitting you in the chest while standing alongside thousands of people all experiencing the same joy that you are feeling... this is what attracts us all to events like this. 

We now have an opportunity to rally together and do something truly incredible. Through our commitment to this crowdfunding model, together we can help establish a future for the Australian live music scene and have our actions speak boldly to the world. Our number one goal with Legion music fest is to be able to establish an ongoing event driven by you, the fans as well as the artists, and produce it in a sustainable way so it will always be there for us. 

We totally understand that you guys want to know the full line up asap and we are working incredibly hard with a large number of bands so that we can make all the artist announcements as quickly as we can. Rest assured we already have some killer bands locked in and we will be able to announce some of them by the time the crowd funding campaign goes live. Further artist updates will be released for everyone promptly as more acts are added to the bill. Keep in mind that the more you get behind this concept, the more the bands will realize how important this is to the Australian fans.

cities

Our aim is to establish an event that will be able to sustainably visit 5 capital cities each year. Due to distance, travel and freight costs plus the major expenses involved in keeping acts in the country for an additional week makes it very difficult to produce the same sized open air shows in Perth and Adelaide as the east coast - particularly in the first year. We are confident however, with your support and continued discussions with state and local government, that we will achieve a positive outcome for 2017 onwards. In the meantime, we can’t have you missing out on the first ever LEGION music fest, so we’ll be organizing club dates for a few of the bands in Adelaide and Perth*.

dates

SATURDAY 26 MARCH 2016  MELBOURNE

SUNDAY 27 MARCH 2016  SYDNEY

MONDAY 28 MARCH 2016  BRISBANE

FRIDAY 1 APRIL 2016 ADELAIDE *(club mini-fest)

SATURDAY 2 APRIL 2016 PERTH *(club mini-fest)

Easter long weekend is what we have settled on. It's such a great time of year - not too hot, not too wet, not too religious :) Plus it's easy to remember!

size

After analyzing the challenges of previous Australian festivals we have made a decision to limit the capacity of the 2016 event to 10,000 per each east coast show. It's our number one goal to give every single one of you a great experience regardless of the acts on the lineup. We will also look at continuing to limit numbers each year within reason to enable us to provide the best experience possible to the fans. Major factors like lining up for toilets, bars and food and too many bands playing at the same time piss us off as much as it does you. Limiting numbers on acts, stages, and capacities to reasonable levels can create a more enjoyable experience for everyone. 

the artists

The fans have spoken and we agree that this event needs to be as much about established and major acts as nurturing upcoming talent from both here in Australia and overseas. To help sustain the event we need to provide a platform for emerging acts whether Aussie or international. Assisting young bands gain much needed exposure on a festival stage where they are able to connect with a broader audience is an ongoing key initiative of Legion HQ.

venues

Scalable venues that can easily adapt each year to varying capacities without it affecting total cost too much is key. This way our event can be scaled accordingly each year as needed without major additional costs or changes of venue. 

partners

We solely support Aussie and local businesses on all legs of the festival. Another important factor in keeping costs stable and gaining trust for establishing the event long term, is putting revenue back into the local markets. The support of these local partners is vital. This will enable us to build the event into a 5 state festival by 2017 and develop it further. 

don't forget your pledge!

Remember, your pledge does not cost anything at all unless we reach our funding goal. This way there is no risk to fans that the event won't happen, no risk to the acts that they won’t be paid, and no risk that the costs of producing the shows will not be covered in full. We’ll also include the budget information on the pledge page so you know exactly what you’re committing your hard earned cash to once the goal is reached. Our pledge to you is that we will always be transparent with you on this important stuff.  It’s a fantastic new model that makes better sense than the old school model, but it only works if we champion the cause, pledge, and encourage our friends to pledge. This cannot happen without you!

pledging goes live 4th january 2016

Cheers!

JS