Camping out for tickets was supposed to be a thing of the past, but over 1,000 Canberrans have queued around the block for hours to get first dig at Spilt Milk entry.
The November music festival offers "Homegrown" ticket codes for locals because online tickets have sold out within minutes in recent years — with last year's nine minutes a record, according to organisers.
A pop-up shop opened in Braddon at midday yesterday, two days before the official pre-sale starts, and about an hour later the festival said the allocation had been exhausted.
Being first in line took serious commitment as Sunday's low, according to the Bureau of Meteorology, was -3.4C at 4:41am.
That was right about when Laurence Adorni-Dickson and two friends arrived on Lonsdale Street.
"Some of the artists this year are a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity," he said.
"Braving the cold was worth it."
As the morning progressed, hundreds more people showed up to wait in line.
Organisers were forced to control numbers with the queue stretching to nearly a kilometre along Lonsdale Street.
"They said they would stop people lining up if they knew there weren't enough tickets," Mr Adorni-Dickson said.
"But people [lined] up anyway."
International acts headline local festival
Spilt Milk was launched in Canberra in 2016 and features local and overseas musicians.
It was announced last week that hip-hop superstar Childish Gambino would be headlining on November 17, which no doubt contributed to the interest.
Separate performances in Perth, Sydney and Melbourne this November and tickets to the extra concerts sold out online, only to be reposted on resale sites at inflated prices.
"The fact that he's in Australia in general is insane," Mr Adorni-Dickson said.
Gambino's recent single, This Is America, went to number one in the United States and Australia.
Its film clip depicting violence and mass shootings was controversial when it was released and currently has over 300,000,000 views on YouTube.
Last November, the festival drew national attention after the ACT Government gave the go-ahead for a pill testing trial.
Festival organisers later pulled out of the trial, citing issues with documentation.
A trial went ahead for Canberra's Groovin the Moo festival in April.
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