The 2010 Bonnaroo team employed a fascinating method to unveil this year’s lineup by announcing one artist at a time throughout an entire day. Now the big question is whether or not this was a genius public relations campaign or a ridiculous way to piss off a bunch of Bonnaroo fanatics.
Every year the releasing of the Roo’s lineup generates nearly just as much excitement as the festival itself. This year was no different. Rumors circulated, Twitter went over capacity and Facebook statuses nationwide were all filled with comments on who would be playing the now quite famous Manchester music festival.
For weeks Bonnaroo.com has advertised that the lineup, along with the third tier of tickets, would be available on the Bonnaroo Myspace page on Feb. 9th. So naturally on Feb. 8th thousands of people, including myself, gathered around their respective computers at 11:59 p.m. in unyielding anticipation of the big announcement. The letdown came when there was nothing posted at midnight… or one… or two. Before long news got around that the artist list would not be announced until the following morning at 10 a.m. There was also news that the artist announcements would be staggered.
While annoyed, there were still huge amounts of buzz and excitement as Bonnaroo lovers abroad made their way to the noted Myspace page the following morning. Then at 10 a.m. the lineup hit the site and everyone went home happy. Right?
Actually, instead of a big list of marvelous bands appearing viewers were shown a virtual image of an interactive cuckoo clock. This was the same clock that every five minutes throughout the day would announce a new addition to the Bonnaroo lineup, the first named being the Avett Brothers.
Artists were announced when characters would come out of the clock and perform some quick interaction resulting in a speech bubble floating above their heads. This bubble held the name of one of the many acts for Bonnaroo 2010.
This virtual unveiling, intended to create buzz, backfired into a buzzkill and was called “annoying” and “maddening” by critics. However, was this really a backfire? I will say that many, again including myself, found this process to be a tedious and unnecessary way to reveal a festival lineup. Yet on the other hand, how many people spent their entire day constantly checking their computer or iPhone? How many people were Tweeting and retweeting about the next amazing band to drop into the list?
The Bonnaroo marketing team took an event that generally has everyone online for three minutes and turned it into a full-day fingernail-biting extravaganza. As annoying to some as it may have, it would take a real publicity disaster to divert people from buying tickets with a lineup featuring superstars like Stevie Wonder, Jay-Z, Kings of Leon and The Flaming Lips.
Furthermore, the people that did get annoyed at this strange unveiling technique are the same people that gave Bonnaroo more advertising than they could have possibly paid for. Twitter was blown apart today with the mass of 160 character phrases of excitement, anticipation, despair and even annoyance. This was a novel, clever and free way to get thousands upon thousands of people circulating the name of Bonnaroo in their own online communities.
Still yet, calling this clever advertising scheme a complete success would not be completely accurate. Even in a time of when technologic advances are flooding the earth, there are still bugs to be worked out. Myspace simply does not have a strong enough platform for this many people to be watching one live streaming announcement at the same time. There were crashes, delays and problems loading the list on many servers. This is where the majority of the negative feedback seems to be coming from, far more than the fact that everyone had to wait around in anticipation all day.
Actually, everyone whom I was in contact with loved the idea. “Anticipation heightens pleasure” was the phrase a friend used when I was complaining about waiting for the next artist addition. In retrospect, I have to agree. I had fun waiting on the next couple of characters to come out and perform some ridiculous action before showing me another great band I will be seeing this coming June.
Maybe Bonnaroo will continue to use this method in the future and maybe not. Regardless of how they do it, as long as the music is solid the fans will return. 2010 will be an amazing year for this festival and this one-day entertaining and/or annoying unveiling stunt will soon disappear into the cloud of Tennessee dust that so many festival goers have grown to know and love.
Landin E. King, Contributing Editor
Photos courtesy of myspace.com/Bonnaroo
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