Legion Music Festival 2016 Cancelled, 2017 Edition Announced

UPDATE 02/11/16: Legion Festival 2017 has been cancelled.

ORIGINAL STORY:The continued logistical mayhem that is the fan-funded Soundwave “replacement” festival, Legion, continues unabated, with a secretive message made today to fans who have pledged to their Pozible campaign, announcing the effective cancellation of the planned 2016 event.

Titled ‘Updates (sic) 3 – CONFIDENTIAL – Legion Music Fest changes’, a post has gone online on the Pozible website, only viewable to those who have pledged, stating that based on feedback from fans and industry people that Legion has “come to the conclusion that our best bet is to move the festival dates to JANUARY 2017 to coincide with and around the Australia Day Long weekend.”

Although the post is titled Confidential, stating “this information won’t be released to the public til tomorrow”, Music Feeds has decided that in the best interest of Australian music fans, especially those considering pledging to Legion in the next 24 hours, that this significant new information needs to be shared sooner than later.

Still sitting at around $310k of the required $3.2m goal with only seven days to go, the Legion pozible campaign has seemed unlikely to succeed from very early on, with many commenters voicing their doubts of the fan-funded method entirely.

The update clarifies that all current pledges will be automatically transferred to the new Legion 2017 campaign, with a new 30 day period of pledging commencing, which will supposedly include a headliner announcement.

Whilst organisers should be commended for attempting to bring heavy music to Australia, the entire Legion debacle is looking more and more like a poorly planned gesture of goodwill to Australian fans, with the knowledge that success would be unlikely from day one.

Read the full post from the pledge-locked Legion update page of Pozible below.

Updates 3 – CONFIDENTIAL – Legion Music Fest changes

posted on 18 January 2016

Hey guys!

There have been some big developments here at Legion HQ over the last few days and we wanted to fill you in first.

Please note that this information won’t be released to the public til tomorrow so please keep it confidential.

We’ve noticed that the number one piece of feedback we’ve had from both the fans and the artists is about the timing of the festival. Here’s what we’ve been told:

– It’s hard for the bands (particularly large, international bands) to commit in such a short amount of time

– A lot of fans have family commitments that they can’t get around over the Easter long weekend

– Travel for people coming in from interstate is really expensive over Easter

– People that have forked out money for Soundwave tickets (and haven’t got their refund yet) as well as the other costs involved that they can’t recoup, are having a hard time getting the money together to attend another festival in March

Based on all of this feedback we’ve have a heap of discussions both internally, with the bands and with our fan council, and have come to the conclusion that our best bet is to move the festival dates to JANUARY 2017 to coincide with and around the Australia Day Long weekend. While we would’ve liked to have moved it til later this year, the European touring circuit would mean that we would not be able to attract many, if any, headline acts.

This date change gives us the opportunity with a few MAJOR international headliners as well as some additional diversity in the lineup that we hope to be able to announce really soon.

In addition to moving the dates, we’re going to create a brand new Pozible crowd funding campaign that will give us an extra 30 days to announce headliners, the remainder of the lineup and also give us more time to really smash our target.

Your pledges will be automatically transferred across to the new campaign, HOWEVER, given that we’re moving the goal posts on you guys we totally understand if you would rather opt out. 

If you DO decide to stay on this ride with us, we really want to reward you for being with us from the very beginning.

Everything will be transferred over to the new campaign at 5pm this evening so anyone who has pledged by that time will receive the following benefits:

– Anyone that has pledged at the $95 or $125 pledge options will receive all of the additional benefits that come with the $225 option for free

– Anyone that has pledged at the $225 pledge option will receive a free VIP afterparty in addition to the benefits that they’re already receiving. 

Other than the dates, nothing else is changing.

The event will still include 3 major east coast open air shows plus, as planned, two mini-festival club shows in Perth and Adelaide.

JAN 21 – PERTH

JAN 22 – ADELAIDE

JAN 26 – MELBOURNE

JAN 28 – SYDNEY

JAN 29 – BRISBANE

Legion Festival Line-Up

DevilDriver (USA)

Front Line Assembly (CANADA)

Aversions Crown (AUS)

Devil You Know (USA)

Darkest Hour (USA)

Battlecross (USA)

Caligula’s Horse (AUS)

Darkc3ll (AUS)

Rick Dangerous And The Silkie Bantams (AUS)

Dream on Dreamer (AUS)

28 Days (AUS)

My Secret Circus (AUS) *Mel only

Horrorwood Mannequins (AUS) *Syd only

MofoIsDead (AUS) *Bris only

Saturday, 26th March 2016

Melbourne Showgrounds, Melbourne

Tickets. Pozible

Sunday, 27th March 2016

Venue TBA, Sydney

Tickets. Pozible

Monday, 28th March 2016

Venue TBA, Brisbane

Tickets. Pozible

Friday, 1st April 2016

Venue TBA, Adelaide (Club mini-festival)

Tickets. Pozible

Saturday, 2nd April 2016

Venue TBA, Perth (Club mini-festival)

Tickets. Pozible

Update: We speak with Legion Festival boss John Sankey

[mfvideo yt=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JXuABI68QHA sb=1597161]

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