Well, the Big Day Out may be in jeopardy, but Southbound is steaming ahead, since some local councils actually like music festivals. The first weekend of the year is going to go off in Bussleton with two days of local and international acts to get us in the mood for another live music year. The set times were released last week, and we’ve been pouring over graphs and making tables to figure out how to see everyone we want to see for the longest possible time. If you haven’t seen it yet, click here so you’ll have something to occupy your brain while Aunty Mabel is telling you about her reconstructive bowel surgery this Christmas day.

The Essential Information for getting yourself in the door was emailed by Sunset today, but for the purposes of making everyone else jealous, and for those with ADHD, heres a summary …

On Friday gates open at 12.30. Saturday the festival opens at 10.30. You can’t go back to your car once you’re in, and the car park is quite a hike from the camping grounds, so if you’re camping travel light.. for a list of what you can and cant take with you, and other suggestions, there’s a stack of links here

You have to print your ticket and take it to the gate. Everyone on the ticket has to go in together. If someone can’t make it on time, they will have to have the ticket reissued in their name before they get there. All the details are here Make sure you do this stuff, because bar codes only scan once, and if you stuff up, you’ll miss out on the best line up we’ve seen in years!

There’s also the usual festival restrictions that you’ll be used to by now if you’ve been to one or ten this year, but if it’s your first time, you might want to print a copy tomorrow, or rip it out of X-Press or Drum and study it surreptitiously when you are supposed to be reading out dreadful xmas cracker dad jokes to your rellies.

And, if you were too slow to get tickets, keep checking back here because we’ll be posting our pictures and reviews direct from the festival all weekend, so that you’ll know exactly what you’re missing out on, and what your mates are getting up to (aren’t we sweet?).