Rock Showdown

A few years ago, publicizing a concert meant posting a million fliers to telephone poles, getting ads in local newspapers and telling your friends to come via word of mouth.\nToday, it also means posting MySpace with messages, getting videos on YouTube and spreading the word via E-mail mailing lists.\nTelecommunications professor Mark Deuze is thrilled about this shift in advertising, and he wants his students to see its potential for innovative marketing strategies.\nThat's why his Telecommunications P451 class, (Topical Seminar in Media & Society) Creative Industries, a class about the changing media culture, has been working on a project all semester in which groups of students have been assigned the publicity of six local bands. \nThe project will culminate tomorrow, when these bands will meet at Rhino's Youth Center & All-Ages Music Club and compete in a show called "Rockshow Snowdown." The band that brings in the most people will get access to a recording studio in Bloomington.\n"In essence, it's like a 'Battle of the Bands' concert," Deuze says. "However, the student part of this is that they take on the PR duties. Every band gets assigned a team of three to four students, and they come up with creative ways to promote the band and Rhino's."\nDeuze came up with the idea for his class to do the project while attending a meeting for a service learning fellowship, which happened to be held at Rhino's on that particular day. \nRhino's is a youth club whose goal is to provide a place for youth in the Bloomington community ages 13 to 18 to come after school and engage in programs through which they can learn about and produce video, journalism, radio and mural arts, according to its Web site. On the weekends, the center functions as an all-ages concert venue, where the youth learn how to bring in bands and put on shows.\n"It reminded me of the places I used to hang out (at) as a kid," Deuze says.\nAt the meeting, Deuze met Brad Wilhelm, the director of Rhino's, and decided he wanted to do something to support the local music community and support it by doing something fun at the same time.\nThe cover charge for the event is $6, and proceeds go to Rhino's.\n"This project has generated a lot of interest, but it's generated a lot of interest from the local music industry, which is really cool. The people at Rhino's are excited about supporting us, and the bands are too."\nWilhelm says he is hoping that the project will raise money for Rhino's but also is glad that the event is providing the chance to develop a relationship between Rhino's and IU students. \nHe also hopes that it will show the bands some tools to promote themselves.\nWilhelm says, "Showing up not only helps support a really cool youth program, it also helps out the bands as well."\nIn using his class to help Rhino's, Deuze is also providing invaluable experience for his students in learning how to utilize the new marketing tools available.\n"Students do very different things with their media than my generation or their parents' generation," Deuze says. "They're more in control, less likely to go out and buy things than buy things online."\nNot only has this new generation switched from paper to computer, he says, it has also allowed for more niche markets.\n"Everybody can start a MySpace page, and there's a lot of stories of small bands making it big these days," he writes in an e-mail. "The idea of 'creative industries' is a new way of looking at media companies suggesting that the days of predictable superstars like Prince or Madonna are over."\nDeuze says students also get practice working with the bands and getting hands-on experience with PR. The students have been the ones to come up with the ideas of creating Facebook profiles for the event, MySpace profiles for the bands and putting videos up on YouTube.\nBut the groups have concocted a lot of original ideas outside of the expected networking sites as well.\nThe band Trio In Stereo's team is a media-savvy bunch: Two of their members are heavily involved at WIUX, and one is involved at IUSTV.\nTheir work with IU's radio and television stations has allowed them to get their band on "local priority" (where they are played at least once an hour) and put their band on the IUSTV show "Amp'd." \nTrio In Stereo team member and WIUX dee-jay Jon Coombs says his team will also be giving away tickets to the show later in the week on the radio.\n"We want to try to keep it fresh in people's minds," says Coombs.\nKate Bohn, a team member for Busman's Holiday, says her group has been mixing traditional forms of advertising with more innovative ones.\n"We made fliers, we also sent out a street team," she says. "We're getting t-shirts made, a CD in the line-up for WIUX, passing out things like pens."\nCody Burgess, a member of the metal/hardcore band Sentinel, says his PR team has also been advertising with handbills around local high schools, but they have been trying to make the most use out of electronic media. \nIn addition to MySpace and student radio play, they also have a Facebook group.\nBroken Stone publicity teammate Lyndsey Hall says her group has been putting fliers on cars at high schools and putting sample CDs in shops around Bloomington.\nShe says, "This way, if the people like the music they will see the flyer and know where they can come see the band.\nHaris Mohammad, a team member for Forever In Effigy, has a more eclectic idea.\n"Two to three days before the show starts, I'm going to dress up as something really strange," he says. "That will get more attention than fliers."\nWhile wearing his strange outfit, he plans to mill around places like downtown and in parking lots, places where he knows students will come.\nHolly Renshaw, a team member for The Romance, says her team's advertising strategies are based on the age of the audience they think will want to see their band.\n"We're really targeting the younger audience," she says. "Online marketing, recruiting fans, putting up fliers around high schools, having people tell more people."\nThe ultimate goal of everyone involved in "Rock Show Snowdown" is that as many people as possible come and have a good time.\n"Overall," says Renshaw, "I just want people to show up at the concert"