GIAN ‘official’ details and comment

After we revealed the Give It A Name line-up over the last few days, here is an official statement from Johnny over at organisers SJM, which makes a few things clear regarding some of the comments and questions raised in our forums:
“Tickets are £55.00 adv stbf for weekend passes and £28.50 adv stbf for single days. Earls Court is an all standing gig and the M.E.N is its usual layout. There are 13 bands per day over 2 stages and the lack of UK acts is due mainly to the fact that most of the bands I chased actually had tours up to and before in place already or other commitments. Bands like CLASSIC CASE, PARAMORE, MEN WOMEN AND CHILDREN, SAY ANYTHING AND THE HONORARY TITLE usually don’t get the option to come to the UK due to tour financial issues so we are using GIAN as a tool to bring these bands over on merit of music and what I like listening to and nothing else! I appreciate you can’t please everyone but take into account how many people bitch that we don’t have bamboozle/skate n surf/warped or a festival like it and then when one is delivered which is as close as we can possibly get due to the enormous costs involved of getting the bands over to play exclusively for 2 dates in venues that are big enough to house the event itself what the hell else can be done? On the line up issues I couldn’t care less what people think, I really think it’s tight and am super excited about it. Ticket price is cheap considering the bands playing (their expenses just to get here alone are huge) the venues they are in and the fact we have no sponsorship unlike many of the U.S. festivals have to pay for all their production etc. Anyway I hope this puts things into perspective and to those that come I really hope it lives up to your expectations. Also one last thing but very important, both these venues are really adapted to rock shows and there will be NO issues regarding catering, water, soft drinks etc I can assure you we are all over this like a fat kid on a cup cake! Anyway that’s all I have to say.”