Extra! Extra! Tweet All About It!

Social networks take on traditional advertising. B.O.M.B. Fest 2010, produced by Bring Our Music Back, Inc. gets news about their festival out via viral avenues.

For the second year, B.O.M.B. Fest, The Bring Our Music Back Inc. festival, the brainchild of Lyme, CT resident, Frankie Bombaci, Jr. will bring together local, emerging talent from the region to share a venue with national acts. What started out as one time event has now blossomed into a national festival with rosters scheduled in Durham, CT May 30, 2010 and in New Orleans in 2011. Bombaci hopes to make it a national event with festivals taking place in cities across the US. Guess what – he won’t have much trouble doing that with how he is going about getting this festival off the ground – or should we say off the servers?

What makes this event special is not just the musicians who will appear and the charities it will benefit, but how the kid (and the adults, who are just learning how to use the most powerful tool known to advertising since the slogan) behind the festival gets the word out. Bombaci, Jr. and his posse of Internet gurus are dialed into just about every avenue on the web. With technology at everyone’s fingertips, you no longer need to pick up the phone, send a letter via snail mail or fax news anywhere. Just open up your laptop, turn on the computer, i-phone, blackberry or PDA and you have a massive marketing tool at your fingertips. Ask his dad, Frank, Sr. and he gets a befuddled look on his face, “tweeting, twittering, I didn’t know what those words meant until my son showed me his marketing plan for the festival.” Now his father is hardly ever without his blackberry in hand and can be seen often one finger texting back and forth with his son almost hourly. “I think we have bonded more this past year with text messaging then I did when he was living under my roof.”

Teens and young adults know just how powerful these tools are and use them to communicate their messages everyday. Texting, emailing, facebooking, tweeting and youtubing are just some of the terms you hear kids mention daily. It’s almost impossible to stay disconnected these days - unless of course you abandon the computer, cell phones and PDA’s altogether, or have been a recluse in some remote backwoods spot. Everywhere you turn you see people double thumbing ferociously as they tweet, text or talk their message to anywhere in the world wide web. Huge companies have resorted to reaching their target audiences via the internet. What started out as a communication network for the government and scientists is now a household entity. World Wide Web and Internet were just the first terms that crossed our lips, then came AOL, Netscape, yahoo, google, Myspace, Twitter, Facebook, youtube and so on. Social networking has become the buzzword today and you can’t go anywhere without someone asking for your Facebook page or email address.

Frankie, Jr. and his team use twitter and Facebook to get the word out about the lineup of bands as well as to talk about events that BOMB Fest throws as fundraisers. Attendance at these Facebook events is driven by the Internet’s far reaching avenue – a simple tweet or post on the “wall” of a Facebook site and you have an instant flash mob of students at the venue for the evening. “It is not just about press anymore,” claims Frankie, “now, you have to be hooked into the social networks to get anything done. We do still hang posters and place ads in traditional places, but to really get the word out we use the Internet.”

His right hand man, Dan Helfers can attest to that, “When I came to Frankie with my marketing plan to help make B.O.M.B. Fest a success, it encompassed everything cyber.“ And so far, it is working. At one Facebook event held in NOLA, the kids raised $10,000 in one night and had 600 fans turn out. And, yes they tweeted and facebooked the whole evening. Live pictures of people, bands and the festivities were all over the web instantly. With three more events planned in Connecticut – some so secret the only way you will know where and when is to be tuned into one of the festival’s many viral sites – it looks like they will have no problem selling the Durham concert out.

This all-day extravaganza, held at the Durham Fairgrounds, will feature every kind of music imaginable from indie-rock to alternative hip-hop. Lupe Fiasco, Brand New, of Montreal and Cool Kids are just a few of the 11 national acts and there are more than 30 local acts who will share the stage with them. All of them with their own Facebook, Myspace and Twitter pages. More than 10,000 music lovers are expected to attend the festival sponsored by Bring Our Music Back, Inc., a non-profit corporation dedicated to enhancing life and healing through music. Festival proceeds of 70 percent will benefit programs at The Hole In The Wall Gang Camps, Connecticut Children’s Medical Center and YPI, a residential summer camp for the arts.

Yes, this is an old fashioned press release, but it’s coming to you via the new fangled communication network – the internet. Unless you really are internet illiterate, in which case you will most likely be the last on the block to know about it and may miss your opportunity to buy a ticket to this festival of music with purpose, you’ll be downloading it or viewing it on the web.

Gates for B.O.M.B. Fest open at 10:30 am with music from noon to 10 pm. Tickets are $50.00 in advance through bombfest.com (of course) or at the gate for $60.00. Fair rides will be open for the whole family’s enjoyment.

For additional information about B.O.M.B. Fest 2010 being held at the Durham Fairgrounds, please contact Leni Herschman or visit bombfest.com or bringourmusicback.org.

Bring Our Music Back is a 501c3 whose mission is to enhance life and healing through music.