It’s over. Done and dusted. The people have spoken and the organisers are counting their losses. Will there be another Stone Music Festival in 2014? In the current format, I don’t think so. In a different format, maybe. Will the people trust the Stone Music Festival brand after the debacle? I don’t think so. Furthermore, the Stone Music Festival, was created to celebrate the movie Stone, and the work of its director. Somehow, that all got forgotten, and in my view, this was just a marketing gimmick from the organisers to push sales. It was never their intention to honour the movie.

Here is a summary of comments doing the rounds on social media..

Would’ve been good to have had the second stage inside the stadium so while changeover was happening on the main stage the indie artists could play! That way they get to play to a massive number of people & get their music heard and we don’t have to lose our seats every time we go out to the second stage!!

Access to toilets, food and bar facilities were a pain in the ass as you missed the show. And yet band like the Choirboys were delegated a spot outside of the arena, during Aerosmith??? Come on people, FFS, next year pay me to schedule and organise it, think I have a better clue than the pros…

That was a stupid decision, have the two stages so far apart. What was Andrew McManus thinking when this was in the planning stages?

The music saved the day for sure and I had a fantastic time, hopefully if there is another next year the organizers will take on board all of the issues that have been so well highlighted on here, my suggestions as well as the obvious re ticketing issues such as not sending them out on time would be to make the tickets a reasonable price from the start so that you don’t have to give so many away at the end and annoy people who purchased in the beginning. Keep the website updated as not everyone finds you on Facebook where the information is more up to speed though still not 100%, minimise the blocking of views of the stage by camera people, open the indoor merchandise when the gates open especially if it is raining, better signage to explain where the second stage is, sort out sound issues, always reply to people on Facebook asking for help and advice instead of asking them to Post Messages (PM)to you and then you don’t respond with an answer on the page so that everyone can see it and you don’t have the same questions to answer repeatedly.

If you are doing a festival, you need to have information up to date and concise. You need to do it on a grand scale, not on a one on one basis. Stone Music Festival needed to have a team of social media strategists and marketeers. That is how it is done. Connecting with the fans. It’s from the bottom up these days. They should have started promoting this event last year, not in February for an April show.

Flew up from Melbourne just to see Billy. Scored sears to Saturday night…..so I know can say that I have seen Aerosmith and the god that is EVH play. Was pleasantly surprised by all the acts before Billy on the Sunday night, but the absolute highlight for me was sitting front row to my idol BJ. Best 90 minute set of the weekend for me !!!

Definitely a great weekend and well worth it despite all the complainers.

Billy Joel still has it. There is something different to bands who paid their dues. Billy Joel played the club circuit as an unsigned artists for a long time before he was picked up by a label. Then once he was picked, the hard work still continued and his brand grew. Young artists these days, don’t have that drive in them anymore. There is the expectation that if they write a good song, they deserve to be paid forever on that one good song.

You cancelled Lifehouse to save $$ for your failing festival!! SMF can go to hell!!!!!!!!

Hats off to the organisers of stone music festival, they will received the award for the most poorly organised concert in modern history.
I received 3 lots of tickets because they couldn’t decide whether to stand, sit, stand, stuff it let’s do both. Then to us poor suckers that brought our tickets early, were punished by paying $50 more per ticket, when I emailed promoters regarding compensation for this I was promised a complimentary ticket to be sent. After sending countless emails over 2 weeks, (and not getting 1 reply), surprise, surprise didn’t receive any ticket or email!!!!! LIARS!!!!
To top it off, The Stone Run, which was the reason for the whole concert in the first place. Was just removed from their website and other advertising thinking that nobody would notice. Ticketek here promised to refund the brought tickets for this, and again still waiting, it’s been 3 weeks, have send emailed of course, with no reply!!!!!
Then I could go on and on. but will end a on lighter note to say that Living End were awesome and really rocked!!!!!!

And that is all she wrote.