Laneway Fest launches Time to Pay interest-free finance

Forget festival FOMO! You can buy your Laneway tickets now and pay them off in smaller instalments until January 2018.

Have you ever missed out on festival tickets because you couldn’t afford it when they went on sale? Or do you have a mate that always asks you to buy their tickets and takes forever to pay you back? Well, Laneway Festival’s new Time to Pay could be the answer to your problems.

After last week's presales, tickets to the 2018 St Jerome’s Laneway Festival went on sale to the general public yesterday, and punters were pleased to discover a new way to pay called Time to Pay.

Similar to AfterPay or zipPay, it’s a form of interest-free finance that breaks up the ticket cost into monthly instalments. So rather than paying the full $174.50 ticket price up front, you could pay it off in smaller chunks over a few months.

When do I have to pay the tickets off?

The instalments vary from three to five months depending on when you buy your tickets. These payment schedules can’t be changed, so you might want to fork out for the tickets earlier if you want more time to pay them off.

You will need to pay the first instalment when you buy the tickets, but the following instalments will be debited on specific dates. We’ve outlined how the payments will be broken up below:

Tickets purchased between 18 September 2017 and 30 September 2017

The total amount of tickets bought between these dates will be divided into five instalments and taken out as follows:

• 1st payment: Date of purchase
• 2nd payment: 16 October 2017
• 3rd Payment: 16 November 2017
• 4th Payment: 16 December 2017
• 5th Payment: 16 January 2018

Tickets purchased between 1 October 2017 and 31 October 2017

The total amount of tickets bought between these dates will be divided into four instalments and taken out as follows:

• 1st Payment: Date of purchase
• 2nd Payment: 16 November 2017
• 3rd Payment: 16 December 2017
• 4th Payment: 16 January 2018

Tickets purchased between 1 November 2017 and 31 November 2017

The total amount of tickets bought between these dates will be divided into three instalments and taken out as follows:

• 1st Payment: Date of purchase
• 2nd Payment: 16 December 2017
• 3rd Payment: 16 January 2018

What happens if I miss a payment?

The instalments are automatically debited from your account, but if you miss a payment, Laneway will make one attempt to contact you via email or telephone. Laneway will give you 10 days to respond to the inquiry or to update your payment information. If you fail to do that, then they will cancel your tickets.

Your PDF ticket won’t land in your inbox until you’ve paid them off in full, so it’s a good idea to set yourself reminders when payments are coming up to make sure that your payment details are up to date and that you have enough money in your account to pay for it.

Time to Pay is only available for a limited time, so you won’t be able to break up your payments if you decide to hit up Laneway the day before the festival. Instead, it’ll only be available to festival-goers who purchase their tickets by 11:59pm on 30 November 2017.

Although it’s interest-free finance, Time to Pay bookings attract a $9.95 administration fee, so you’ll be paying more for your ticket overall than if you were to fork out the full fee up front. But if you want to divvy up the payments in between pay cheques, this new way to pay will make sure you never have festival FOMO again.

Laneway Festival isn't the first to launch a payment system of this kind, though. The Subsonic Music Festival (which is coming up on 3 December 2017) also launched Time to Pay to give attendees more time to pay them off.

Want to know when the Laneway Festival is stopping by your city? Check out the tour dates below:

• ADELAIDE. Hart's Mill, Port Adelaide, SA: Friday 2 Feb 2018.
• MELBOURNE. Footscray Community Arts Centre, VIC: Saturday 3 Feb 2018.
• SYDNEY. Sydney College of the Arts & Callan Park, Rozelle, NSW: Sunday 4 Feb 2018.
• BRISBANE. Brisbane Showgrounds, Bowen Hills, QLD: Saturday 10 Feb 2018.
• FREMANTLE. Esplanade Reserve & West End, WA: Sunday 11 Feb 2018.

Picture: Shutterstock