Next summer, the youth of America will have a new entertainment option: ArenaFest, a music, fashion and sports circus for the indoor set that could convince social network denizens to go out and meet each other in the real world.
Unlike tours from the Rolling Stones, the Eagles and other boomer-oriented acts, which tend to charge upward of a hundred bucks per seat, ArenaFest will only costs $27.50. To attract the younger crowd, it will feature bands, extreme sports, social networking features, a modeling competition, a dating game, and videogame competitions on the venues' Jumbotron display.
Music, while not the sole focus of ArenaFest, will play a large role. Starting Monday, bands that want a chance to play in front of an estimated 100,000 fans at ten ArenaFest events can create a profile on Sellaband, a crowdsourced record label. 18 artists will be chosen from those that enter to play ten shows apiece at various ArenaFest events in their area, opening for a more established band.
"We've been pretty successful with helping bands fund their albumswith the help of music lovers around the globe," Sellaband CEO JohanVosmeijer told Wired.com. "Through experience, we found out that it'snot complete without a live element to it. Ultimately, that's what allmusicians, all bands want – they want to be on stage, they want toplay live." To make sure that the bands actually can play live,
Sellaband will send scouts to hear them play a local show during one ofthe last levels of judging. The lucky winners will earn berths on theArenaFest tour bus, giving them something like the authentic touringexperience.
These bands, which will have to prove via Sellaband that they have a sizable draw, should attract the same sort of male-heavy audience that other musicfestivals tend to draw. To bring the fairer sex into the fold and make its dreamof a real, live social network come true, ArenaFest will also includea modeling contest somewhat along the lines of a live "America's NextTop Model" and a dating game that will pair musicians, models and audiencemembers. As in real life,
Arenafest's rock stars will date models.
"We're launching the world's first live social network," explainedArena Works Entertainment CEO John Ossenmacher, who previously foundedArena Sports Network. "Typically, the demographic of an arena crowd isolder, they have a lot of disposable income and they're either buyingexpensive NBA tickets or Celine Dion tickets, or Bono, or someone likethat... we wanted to broaden that." That means bands, videogame andmodeling competitions, dating shows and "wired" venues withinteractive, social features, although Ossenmacher wouldn't go intodetail about precisely what technology would be involved.
"We're doing some things to allow people to wirelessly interact withtheir surroundings as well as their social communities while they're atthese events... some things we're doing things with different types ofcommunication systems where, while music is being played, you can bedoing stuff instantaneously with that music electronically." During the extreme sporting events, attendees will apparently be able to interact with the players' environment electronically as well.
The indoor aspect of the shows will allow for sophisticatedequipment to be used without having it be subject to the elements. Italso doesn't hurt that the boomers will be at outdoor venues during thesummer, freeing up arenas for youth-oriented events. Unlike the boomers' seating-assigned events, ArenaFest will let audience members go wherever they want within the venue for the same $27.50 entry price.
The 91-event interactive festival will tourten of the nation's major indoor arenas in the summer of 2009.
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