Festival producer and promoter Danny Wimmer Presents (DWP) has invested heavily in its digital engagement channels throughout the pandemic, which included a recent partnership with Twitch that launched back in June.
Over the past few months, DWP has leveraged its Twitch channel, and specifically the popular That Space Zebra Show, to host a virtual “Battle For The Big Stage: Road to Rockville Edition,” a battle of the bands competition for the chance to perform at the Welcome To Rockville festival in November, DWP’s final festival of the 2021 season.
“Everyone’s favorite band was unsigned at some point,” said “That Space Zebra Show” co-host and Blackcraft founder Bobby Schubenski in a statement. “Coming from the clothing industry, Blackcraft also receives thousands of inquiries from unsigned artists requesting sponsorship, and having the Twitch platform to break them sets us apart from others in this rock space. The future for rock is really bright.”
The final four bands performed live on the channel last week — the stream has now garnered almost 160,000 views — and fans could tune in to vote for their favorite, as long as they were followers of the channel.
Although the showing for the final was likely affected by Facebook and Instagram’s unfortunate outage that same day, preventing DWP from reminding as many fans as they otherwise would have, thousands of fans cast their votes throughout the competition. This was a great way for DWP to keep its community engaged online in between physical events, which is quickly becoming an enviable ability in the industry.
DWP CEO Danny Hayes added: “DWP receives hundreds of inquiries each month from bands asking how they can play our shows. We were excited to utilize the Twitch technology as a tool to let thousands of fans take the lead in discovering new talent through this live real-time tournament.” He also noted that DWP plans to further explore this concept following the success of this year’s Battle for the Big Stage competition.
That Space Zebra Show has been onsite at recent DWP events, taking fans behind the scenes and providing exclusive programming including interviews with artists. They will once again be live from Welcome To Rockville, and fans can also catch select performances from the festival on DWP’s Twitch channel.