Harvest Festival promoter AJ Maddah is under siege once again from irate music fans, after long queues marred Saturday's debutante event at Werribee Park.

Despite the gorgeous surrounds doing much to bolster the event's tagline as a "civilised gathering", snaking, immobile queues were commonplace around the festival grounds, as punters waited in a multitude of lines for basic services such as food, alcohol, and amenities. The lack of toilets on offer drove many into the surrounding bushes to relieve themselves, although the diminished opportunities for actually purchasing drinkable fluids most likely kept the steady stream in check.

The practice of purchasing coupons in order to procure alcohol — a technique also used at Maddah's rock festival Soundwave — meant that thirsty fans were forced to queue twice: once for the drink coupons and then again to enter the bar to use them. The result was a proportion of the 15,000 attendance figure (according to organisers) being unable to gain access to the bar in suitable time to offload the coupons, rendering the "non-refundable" — but paid for — tickets worthless.

Fans took to twitter and Facebook after the festival to complain about the long waits, some directing much of their vitriol at AJ Maddah, the outspoken organiser of the event. Maddah initially denied blame via twitter, saying (in a tweet now removed) that Harvest was "severely let down by F&B (food and beverage) people". He then elaborated, saying "LOSSES TODAY: Inept bar operators. Spent 2 hours with our volunteers & staff fixing their fuck-ups & selling coupons to get rid off [sic] lines."

When Maddah was challenged on his take on the issue by a host of irate patrons, including twitter user (and Triple R presenter) Dave Slutzkin, who wrote "Dude, you don't get to say "Severely let down by F&B people". When you run something, the buck has to stop with you.", Maddah was more reflective, replying "Absolutely! At the end of the day I take responsibility for any & all issues. Just expressing my frustration at the time." Maddah has since resolved to refund unused coupons, saying this afternoon, "Melbourne folks, if you have any leftover Harvest coupons please hang on to them. I am working to get them refunded. Announcement soon."

Such consternation comes a week after TheVine published an article linking to statements Maddah made on his personal blog regarding a "headliner" of the festival — that was widely acknowledged as a thinly-veiled reference to Portishead — and the festivals timetable delays. After the discussion between Maddah, Geoff Barrow's Portishead and this writer spilled on to twitter, a statement was posted on the Harvest Festival website early Saturday morning, alluding to the discourse. It argued that — despite TheVine publishing Maddah's blog in full — the promoter had been taken out of context:

I can categorically say that we have never had any issues, conflict or difficulty working with Portishead or anyone in their team. If anything they have been wonderful and accommodating.

The band made it quite clear that they did not want to risk noise spill from other stages during their performance which we agreed to. This has necessitated some shuffling of other performances and dealing with local authorities on transport, traffic and curfew matters which were described in a social media setting. It is very obvious that the frustration expressed were not aimed at, or in reference to Portishead or indeed any other specific artist.

It is appalling that someone in the media would use quotes out of context, or words which were not used in connection to Portishead to solicit a negative response from the band so as to create a story where none existed. What is even more sad is that even when all sources clarified and dismissed this nonsense, one of our very credible broadsheet papers chose to act like a UK tabloid and rehash the garbage 24 hours later.

In any case, we know it was all nonsense, the band know it was all nonsense and now you know it was all nonsense.
Maddah's original blog stated that Harvest's timetable issues of the previous week, arose from one of Harvest's "amazing, melancholy and ethereal" headliners wanting "absolute silence on the other stages" while they were performing. If not, Maddah wrote, "They would cancel." The original statement then finished with "And this was no bluff," but was later changed to "And fair enough."

Read our review of the 2011 Harvest Festival here on TheVine.

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