Welcome everyone to the official launch of the FEST 11 website! We started early once again in hopes to give you all time to figure out how you are going to get Gainesville for our big 11 year anniversary. Dates for FEST 11 are Oct 26, 27 & 28, 2012.
I would like to thank the fine folks at Black Axe for the tight site design and our new TIKI party theme this year. As always, they have outdone themselves!
Booking FEST 11 was a bit of a challenge this year since it seemed like we had almost every alumni band in our town last year, but we have only begun the process and are really proud to say that we have a shit ton of bands already booked, and a ton of new bands coming to party with us all this year like Lagwagon, Braid, Anti-Flag Streetlight Manifesto, Ensign, Red Fang, Mustard Plug, Joyce Manor, Dan Vapid and the Cheats, Crusades, Black God, and many MANY more exciting new bands we hope to expose to you.
We also are giving an open arms return to the likes of Frank Turner, Naked Raygun, Baroness, Torche, The Swellers, Valient Thorr, Andrew Jackson Jihad, Shook Ones, The Sidekicks, Night Birds, Into It. Over It, Shellshag, Larry and His Flask, Burning Love, as well as many of our close family of bands who seem to never miss FEST!!!
Speaking of returns, it has been almost a decade since anyone has seen the likes of our really good friends Cadillac Blindside (featured band on the site). For those of you who are in the know you can thank me when we are all there at the show singing along. For those of you who don’t…get into it! Personally this is a really big deal to me. Cadillac Blindside was not only an amazing band when they were active, but some of the closest friends I had when I first moved to Gainesville even though they are from Minneapolis. Getting them to reunite has taken years in the making, and we could not be more pleased to have our good friends back in Gainesville!!! Fest has changed quite a bit since they have played so I hope you all will help me in welcoming them back!!!
Many of the bands this year are making their appearance at FEST 11 very special by making it their exclusive show in Florida. You can see a little icon on their band photo letting you know who is only coming to Gainesville to party down.
Go to the BANDS page of the site and check everyone out. Once we get all the info in from the bands, each page should have a song to check out, a video, links, and a little bit about the band that they have written. You can also jam out the FEST radio player and, hopefully, find some new favorite bands. I already have some newbies that are in my constant rotation while working on this beast. We are also not done booking this fucker. We have a few tricks still up our sleeves so stay tuned. We hope to have another big batch of bands to announce in the months to come. There are a ton of bands we are in talks with who are still trying to figure out their fall plans. Hell, I am totally shocked that this many bands have their shit together this far in advance. Trust me. This is only the beginning my friends.
In the months to come, we will also be doing our FREE DIGITAL DOWNLOAD COMPS. Last year we had 6. You can still download them here.
REGISTRATION: We will once again be doing it at the HOLIDAY INN UNIVERSITY CENTER. We have a plan to make the line move much faster this year and opening up an early registration on Thursday. We also have already stated planning some OFFICIAL PRE-FEST SHOWS for that day in Gainesville. So, come to town a little early and party an extra day. We will not be announcing who is playing PRE-FEST until later this summer, but I already have Double Down and Loosey’s totally booked up. We are getting dangerously close to making FEST a four day marathon.
FEST WEEKEND PASSES/ HOTELS/ MERCH go on sale April 20th at 1:00pm EST. Give us something else to celebrate that day! We are gonna do an early turd price again this year. It will be $85 before July 1st. Then it goes up to $100. So do not snooze! Last year we sold out in 60 days! We are only going to sell 3,275 weekend passes. Same we sold last year.
We now have 4 OFFICAL FEST HOTEL PARTNERS. The new ones have some pretty cool room features! Go to the HOTELS page to get the scoop on each hotel, and come back on 4/20 to get your pick. Hopefully with 4 hotels we will not sell out so fast.
Horsebites has once again graced up with some really kick ass wear again this year. We also brought back the FEST Hoodie and the FEST Pint glasses that were so popular last year. We also will have a third shirt design and a limited edition Horsebites FEST 11 Art Print for sale in the months to come. With this year’s TIKI theme I can only imagine how crazy that print will turn out.
OUR FEATURED VIDEO:
In October 2011, the makers of Australian punk rock podcast D.I.Wireless embarked on a month-long road trip to attend the 10th anniversary of THE FEST.
Along the way they met a number of bands who make the same pilgrimage year after
year to one of the biggest punk rock parties ever forgotten. The series captures thoughts
about hometown scenes as well as what makes THE FEST so unique - told by those who
play the theatres, bars and cafes, but are also just as much part of the debauchery as the
thousands of people from around the world who swarm to Gainesville every year.
All 6 episodes can be seen here on the FEST 11 site and at D.I.Wireless with a new episode debuting every 2 weeks.
KEEP INFORMED ABOUT FEST 11 & HELP SPREAD THE WORD:
Follow us on Twitter and Facebook for updates. We hope to do some really cool stuff with the site this year and maybe even debut a few things from bands in the months to come. Seems like everyone is putting out new material this year! Hopefully we can get some sneak peaks for you.
WELCOME TO THE JUNGLE! CRAZY FROM THE HEAT!
Tony and the FEST 11 crew
