In an article titled BAM!: A Blueprint For Disaster?, Mess and Noise has revealed the questionable planning behind the Bam! Festival, which is scheduled to run between October 8-10 at Ivory’s Rock Conference Centre in Queensland. While largely rock-focused, the line-up also boasts a long roll-call of DJs like Baby Gee, Habebe, Nik Fish and Amber Savage.

Making a comparison to Victoria’s disastrous Blueprint festival last year – which resulted in the organisers losing nearly $500,000 and disappearing “somewhere in regional Australia” – the article lists many worrying aspects in the planing of the Bam! Festival.

A Mess and Noise poster attended a festival meeting and reports that while festival director Sarita Beavis acknowledges the negativity from the public because of the failure of Lost Weekend and Blueprint, she fails to address those those concerns.

During the meeting the Bam! Production team explained that the Bam! festival is the different to festivals such as Splendour In The Grass which spend big money on international acts. In contrast, BAM! festival will feature local artists who aren’t paid at all.

Despite the lack of payment the festival organisers maintain that acts on the line-up still have an “opportunity” to make money by selling tickets. Bands can receive a payment of $5,000 bonus for selling 100 tickets and the festival organisers claim that if at least every band member playing at the festival and each of the 80 organisers can sell one ticket then the festival can “well and truly break even”.

Although the festival’s website claims that the VIP passes are sold out, the organisers revealed that there are 300 VIP passes remaining for sale. The festival is planning to add another 50 acts to its already long line-up.