Harvest Jazz & Blues tickets up for grabs Saturday

Music fans have one more sleep until sales resume for this year's Harvest Jazz &Blues Festival in Fredericton.

Ticket sales have been on hold for the past two weeks after festival organizers changed ticket providers, from U.S.-basedEtixnow toCanadian company TicketPro.ca.

This year's lineup includes Robert Plant, Lucinda Williams and Jason Isbell.

Once tickets originally wenton sale in April, many customers weren't able to purchase their tickets, causing hundreds of complaints online.

But starting Saturday,TicketPro.ca will handle ticket sales.

"That's how we're moving forward here," said Brent Staeben, director of the Harvest Jazz and Blues Festival. "We intend to have them with us through the festival this year."

Staeben expects ticket buyers will have an easier time overthe weekend.

Scalpers not involved

"We're very, very comfortable that TicketProis ready to go," he said.

When ticket sales were put on hold, Staeben said, there were rumours going around that bots and scalpers had something to do with it.

"I can assure you that's not the case," he said.

It really was simply overwhelming demand from individuals.- Brent Staeben, Harvest Jazz and Blues

Organizers did a review afterwardand could tellby IPaddresses whereticket requests were coming from, he said.

"It really was simply overwhelming demand from individuals," he said.

Staeben said there's a limit of four tickets for Robert Plant and a limit of eight tickets for all the other shows.

"That's just an indication of how we hope to be able to give more people anopportunity to purchase," he said.

Tips for purchasing tickets

Tickets go on sale at 11 a.m. Saturday.

Staeben said it's important to set up an account before trying to buy tickets.

"I'm the type of person who would create my account and get it ready to go the day before," he said. "When I get there the morning of, I sign in and off we go."

He's also reminding people they have 12 minutes to purchase their tickets and complete a transaction.

The festival runs from Sept. 10 to Sept. 15.