MOBILE BACKSTAGE COMES TO CANADA
Mobile Backstage Comes to Canada, Launches New Facebook App
New Mobile Platform Revolutionizes How Artists and Fans Connect
A CANADIAN MUSIC WEEK 2011 WELCOME: WWW.CMW.NET
Toronto, Canada (March 10, 2011) – Helsinki-based Mobile Backstage today announced the launch in Canada of a revolutionary new interactive mobile platform connecting artists and fans. The company also announced the global launch of an innovative new Facebook app that seamlessly unites artists’ mobile and Internet fan communities.
“We are thrilled to bring the most advanced direct-to-fan mobile platform anywhere to Canada,” said Paavo Bäckman, Prime Minister and co-founder of Mobile Backstage. “Mobile Backstage creates exclusive mobile fan clubs that drive deeper and more personal artist-to-fan direct connection and engagement than any other digital platform.”
With Mobile Backstage, artists and fans can exchange news, views, photos and other content on iPhones, and soon, other mobile devices. This builds strong and viral mobile communities where fans can share their experiences, and artists and labels can generate revenue. Mobile Backstage represents a major leap from other artist mobile apps that offer little more than web content repurposed for mobile devices.
Unique features include an exclusive Foursquare-style capability that allows fans to “check in” at gigs, see who else is there and much more. For a video demonstration, go to www.mobilebackstage.com.
The platform already links numerous major label and indie artists in Europe, including breakout Swedish artist Lykke Li and Britain’s You Me At Six, with hundreds of thousands of fans.
Mobile Backstage in Canada
The platform has been successfully test-marketed in Canada by EMI Music Canada artists These Kids Wear Crowns and Sweet Thing. The Mobile Backstage community for these and other bands can be downloaded via the Apple App Store.
“We at EMI Music Canada are very pleased with the early results we have seen from Mobile Backstage,” said Joel Urnom, Mobile Marketing Director, EMI Music Canada. “It’s the leading tool to mobilize, engage and activate die hard fans of any band – a sort of uber-fan club for a generation on the move.”
New Facebook App
The Mobile Backstage Facebook app utilizes a customized Google map that enables the community – fans and artists alike – to see where all members are located. Much more than a Facebook band page, this is a band-branded app where fans can not only follow a band’s movements on the road, but also see the location of other fans and their online posts.
Using the Facebook app, Mobile Backstage clients can see where fans are clustered, follow their activities on the platform, and more. Fans can also use it to buy music and tickets to shows, and recruit new fans.
About Mobile Backstage
Mobile Backstage was founded by Paavo Bäckman and Jussi Ruusila, previously owners of a successful independent label and management company with several #1 bands in Finland. When they could not find the fan engagement platform they and their acts needed, they looked to the mobile space, and created Mobile Backstage. For more information, visit www.mobilebackstage.com.
Mobile Backstage at Canadian Music Week
Mobile Backstage Prime Minister (CEO) Paavo Bäckman is on-site and available for interviews during CMW. He is speaking at the Apps for Bands and Apps for Fans panel session, 11 a.m. – noon, Friday, March 11, Salon B, Fairmont Royal York Hotel.
About Canadian Music Week
Canadian Music Week is Canada’s leading annual entertainment event dedicated to the expression and growth of the country’s music, media and entertainment industries. Combining four information-intensive conferences; a trade exposition; a film festival; four awards shows and the nation’s largest New Music Festival – Canadian Music Fest – CMW spans a five-day period from March 9 to March 13, 2011 at the Fairmont Royal York Hotel and various downtown Toronto venues, attracting participants from across the globe. For more information, visit www.cmw.net.
For more information:
Don Hogarth
Hogarth Communications
E: don@hogarthpr.com T: 416-565-8920
For Canadian Music Week information, please contact:
Planet3 Communications: Piera Savage/Joanne Smale
T: 647.346.4101 E: info@planet3com.net
Bessie Bullard – Communications Director
T: 905.858.4747 E: bessie@cmw.net
