Red Sky Music Festival will start announcing bands on Monday

Yes, the headline above is true. No joke.

Red Sky Music Festival will begin to announce bands starting Monday.

At least, that's what the the fest's website says. I think they're going to do a delayed sort of announcement where you get some bands each day or each week.

Basically, that means they're trying to eke it out over time to keep people (including us media folk) talking about it.

Also of note, they're going to have a "Battle of the Local Bands" hosted by The Reader. Bands will be compensated both for the showcases and for the festival performances ("based on draw" for the showcases and either $500 or $1,000 for the actual festival).

I, for one, think these sort of things are pretty bad ideas. Bands should be chosen based on their merits. They shouldn't be chosen by popular vote. The winner usually ends up being the band that brings more family members/friends to its showcase.

If they want local bands, they should just pick local bands, but my guess is that MECA and Live Nation don't know enough about the local scene to do that. That's not an insult and I'm not trying to slight them at all. I just don't see Roger Dixon at The Waiting Room very often.

Anyway, local bands can submit through SonicBids.

Expect to see a at least few bands announced on Monday. Stay tuned here for details and my thoughts on who makes the list.

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Other than that, the biggest news is ticket prices.
1-Day Pass: $15
3-Day Pass: $30
6-Day Pass: $60

Sounds cheap, right? Eh, yes and no. Those prices are for stages B & C only. That doesn't get you into the main stage at TD Ameritrade Park.

Read: You're going to have to pay more to see the headliners. So far, this isn't like Lollapalooza/Coachella where you pay a few hundred bucks and you get to see everything.

My guess is that you're going to have to buy separate passes for each of the six nights, and they'll probably all be different price ranges depending on the act.

As I've said before, this is basically like six nights of Qwest Center acts on consecutive days, just with bands playing all day beforehand.

More details on tickets (prices and on-sale dates) are coming.

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Also interesting are the sponsors, Miller Lite and Pepsi. Both are pretty big sponsors of music fests. If you look around, you'll notice they're two of the largest sponsors of SXSW.