The official line-up for Harvest Festival 2012, featuring a stellar bill topped by the likes of Beck, Sigur Rós, Grizzly Bear and Ben Folds Five has announced a few short weeks ago, with the national music festival being brought to bear on Sydney, Brisbane and Melbourne in November.
And following the teething problems of last year’s debut, particularly the Melbourne leg of the festival which was famously plagued by an obscure ticketing system for alcohol, understaffed food tents and severe queueing for toilets; festival organisers promised to fix the problems for this year’s showing.
Festival boss, AJ Maddah vowed he was “personally” overseeing amenities for this year’s edition of Harvest, and would be “micro-managing every aspect.” While co-promoter Declan Forde described last year’s issues as a “major cock-up” which was a “source of deep embarrassment,” before vowing they would be making amends.
One such amendment was a kind of communal collateral called the ‘Foundation Member’ program for punters who attended Melbourne’s problematic turn last year, and now the first details of the program have emerged.
An email was sent out this morning to customers who purchased tickets in the pre-sale to Harvest Festival 2011, that reads, “you took a chance on Harvest in its 1st year and for that we thank you.” Before stating that “as a Foundation Member” punters are given the first opportunity to buy tickets to Harvest 2012 in an exclusive presale.
The email also contains a unique password that are valid to purchase “1 ticket to any or all events” along with the ability to purchase the same number of tickets based on the number purchased for last year’s festival.
Not only that, but the cost of postage and delivery will be handled gratis, along with the promise that Harvest Foundation Memberships activated by purchasing tickets “will never pay postage or ticket delivery costs for the festival ever!”
Organisers have saved on physical costs by forgoing tickets and instead will be issuing Harvest Foundation Members with a special card containing the customer’s name and a unique barcode, the card “then will become your ticket to all future Harvest events when you activate it online by paying for your ticket.”
Further benefits are enabled upon registration, with the presale running exclusively from Tuesday 26 June to Thursday 28 June at 8am.
It’s a bold move by festival organisers demonstrating that they are truly attempting to right the wrongs of last year’s festival
