Were you one of the ones that wasted much of your Friday morning in a virtual waiting room for FreeFest, only to get shut out of snagging one of the 50,000 free tickets to the annual music festival?

Well, fear not, there’s still ways to get in (without shelling out upwards of $50 for a Freemium ticket package). As it has in the past, Virgin Mobile is offering several opportunities to see Robin Thicke, The Avett Brothers, MGMT, Vampire Weekend, and more, free of charge:

  • Volunteer: Virgin Mobile’s charitable RE*Generation program is teaming up with Sasha Bruce Youthwork to organize a few volunteer opportunities in exchange for a ticket. The dates for volunteer opportunities will run from August 17 to September 7, and cover a range of community projects including painting, planting, and other landscaping activities throughout the DMV area.
  • Donate: Virgin Mobile is accepting hygiene kits as a donation that can be exchange for a ticket. Each hygiene kit is suggested to include one travel-sized toothbrush and toothpaste, one travel-sized bottle of soap, one travel-sized deodorant, one travel-sized bottle of lotion, and one travel-sized bottle of shampoo and conditioner. These kits can be dropped off at the Sasha Bruce House—1022 Maryland Avenue NE, Washington DC 20002—from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Aug. 17, 24, 31 or Sept. 7.

In an email, I.M.P. publicist Audrey Fix Schafer tells DCist that the past four FreeFests have racked up “nearly $800,000” in donations, as well as “nearly 75,000 volunteer hours and 25,000 hygiene kits.” That $800,000 raised from years past has even funded the Virgin Mobile RE*Generation house—a homeless youth shelter run by Sasha Bruce Youthwork—and this year’s monetary donations will be used to support the house and Sasha Bruce Youthwork.

And although FreeFest “free’d out” in seconds, it seems as though they did a fairly good job at keeping out third-parties from snatching up all the tickets only to resell them at astronomical prices—neither StubHub, nor Craigslist yields results from ticket sales by dealers.

Filed Under: merriweather post pavilion, Sasha Bruce House, virgin mobile freefest, volunteer,