I’m not sure if you felt it, but you might have detected a shockwave in the air as heads exploded at the thought of a reverse-procedure, modern-day telethon, held on the internet, using actual phones, conveying sensitive information the opposite direction while, of all people, Weird Al Yankovic pulled a list of musician’s names out of the butt of a paper mâché donkey. Okay, maybe that was all a lot to take in at once. But trust me, there was some method, some madness and actually some brilliance in the breaking down of true public relations and actual social media at work within an incredibly traditionally structured live event. But let me explain…

Bonnaroo Lineup Announcement Megathon (B.L.A.M.)

For a few weeks prior Bonnaroo had teased that they would announce this year’s lineup to their 12th annual four-day music and arts festival (held in June on farmland in central Tennessee, we’re fans) and telegraphed that comedian and song parody king Weird Al Yankovic would be a part of the big reveal.  Bonnaroo was no stranger to unusual or gimmicky lineup announcements. In 2010 Bonnaroo unraveled the lineup slowly throughout a whole day via a cartoonish clock hosted on MySpace (of all places). But this year’s plan began to coalesce with the announcement of an hour-long internet TV-special on YouTube called B.L.A.M., hosted by Yankovic.

Nevermind whatever you think of Weird Al, who, with the help of other comedians like Chris Gethard and a vaudevillian lineup of stunts, live music (Portugal The Man), jokes, tubs of meat and more managed to at least captivate if not actually entertain during the special event. Some found Weird Al’s humor painfully annoying while others were at least charmed in the same way they were when Al used to do a takeover of MTV for a Saturday (or indeed his whole movie on a TV takeover, the classic UHF).

No, the real magic was in the clever and casual use of social and traditional – and not in the same staid “one promotes the other”  cheap imitation of integration. In fact some of the ideas were so forehead-slappingly easy to pull off the real feat was that it all didn’t fall apart under the weight of what is a big news day for one of the bigger U.S. festivals.

Video Phones

After a montage of videos depicting what bands some people were hoping Bonnaroo to announce (which confused a few online who joined late into thinking these were the actual updates), B.L.A.M. hosted a mother-son duo who were chatted up and then given, presumably in the chat window below their private VOIP call, the names of the bands they could be the first to announce. This happened a few times during the event, putting a human face on the fans and allowing real surprise to show on the faces of fans also communicating a lineup to viewers.

The Reverse-Telethon

But by far the most unique, and frankly brilliant in my opinion, move by Bonnaroo was this unusual reverse-telethon they hosted. After a number had flashed on the screen several times early on, viewers were encouraged to call in and talk (presumably) to one of eight phone operators, which included comedians such as Eugene Mirman). When calls did manage to get through the caller was given a name of a Bonnaroo artist in the lineup that had yet to be announced. That’s it. And yet, it’s brilliant. No embargo, no requirements to share. You could do whatever you wanted with that information – you could just be privately excited. You could just tell your friends by phone, email, Facebook, whatever.  Or you could be the first person to tell the whole world an unrevealed nugget of news. If you wanted to reach the most people you’d use the #BLAM hashtag on Twitter – where you would no doubt be met with gaggles of new followers, hundreds of ReTweets. It was up to the caller. The truth would be revealed eventually whether you told anyone or not and so the onus was truly on the caller to make the most of the information. And the gem of news you were given was yours to do with as you please. It was a fantastic blend of the private hand-to-hand gossip world of social media and the opposite public desire to be a source to be recognized.

Love (and Information) Will Find a Way

Sure the whole, “let our audience announce it” bit has been done before, from white board photoshopped photos to even video clips – but Bonnaroo’s B.L.A.M. took it one crucial step further: they not only gave bits of info to fans directly but they gave them the freedom to use it too.

Timing was also on their side, theirs to mangle and play with like play-doh for the hour. No matter what happened, the Bonnaroo lineup would be revealed by 2pm. Countless media were no doubt ready to publish the list or at the very least would be sent it instantly. For an entire hour Bonnaroo (and Weird Al) could just screw with us. From a PR perspective the greatest weight was lifted with the concept that at 1:01pm EST if the whole thing unraveled it just didn’t matter. It didn’t matter if Paul McCartney was unveiled first in some ways (he wasn’t). It was a communications stress that lifted the moment the show started. It was play, it was fun, it was freeing. Yes, they wanted B.L.A.M. to be a success and be an entertaining hour but if the whole thing felt like a giant experimental theatre project that was perfectly okay. They had let the lunatics run the asylum and handle all the good china. In fact it was the best china Bonnaroo had: their precious and manically protected lineup before tickets would go on sale.

(At one point they had the internet live-vote through hashtag use to determine which envelope hidden in a poster would be open for the next reveal – one was Mumford and Sons, the other that Weird Al himself would be at Bonnaroo.)

The lineup content, or basic information in this case, was incredibly easy to separate and compartmentalize. Certainly some announcements were bigger than others, but not knowing how big a name was about to be revealed was part of the excitement (especially since, by many standards, Bonnaroo had managed to compile a relatively top-heavy lineup comprised of many other summer festival’s headliners and several unique ones all their own). There was more to B.L.A.M. than just reverse-telethons and you can watch the whole thing for yourself below.

Perhaps most refreshingly the B.L.A.M. stunt broke down the silos of not just “traditional” versus “new media” – but also the silos between channels. They had official channels that were all humming, but they didn’t try and make anyone use any channel they didn’t want to. With the exception of the live stream hosting exclusively on YouTube, fans of Bonnaroo could find out about the lineup a myriad of ways. The almost lackadaisical variety was nice to see – they weren’t getting worked up over how you revealed what whenever you wanted to. All control would still be theirs by the end. (Meanwhile I’m sure the entire endeavor would make many classically trained public relations professionals clutch their pearls.)

In the end, the important thing to take away from this isn’t how they utilized both channels and behavior to their advantage. No, it’s how they didn’t let a need for control get in the way of a number of smart ideas. Did everyone love every part? No. But as a series of tricks they managed to do more interesting things in 45 minutes than I’ve seen some brands do with an “integrated” strategy in an entire year.

- Dean

This is significant on many levels and social media has underpinned a lot of the success.

Inspire a Generation – The official motto of London 2012 was designed to make sure the competition would lift the aspirations of youths across the world, create role models and stimulate dreams.  In a modern media world teens are as likely to have a screen saver on their mobile featuring Jess Ennis as they are a bedroom poster. 245,000 people follow Sir Chris Hoy, ten times more than follow the Prime Minister. Usain Bolt’s victory had 2BN people tune into watch and 48hrs later another 10M had seen it on YouTube.

Social Media is taking the message of the Games to people and places that previously weren’t even prospected. How many posts were there on Facebook featuring Phelps’ achievements?

Elite to Ubiquitous – Social technologies are breaking down the barriers of elitism in sport. There is a waiting list at local clubs for archery and fencing, sports that previously would struggle to operate year round. Twitter and FB images from the athletes’ village show in detail what aspiring Olympians might expect; suddenly it seems possible and somehow quite ‘normal’. Suddenly the glittering excess and fantasy of Premiership footballers seems more and more vacuous. Now we really know the athletes and we are on the journey with them, sampling the joy and elation of victory or the unadulterated pain of defeat in real time.

@chrishoy

@BeckAdlington

The ticketing process initially was derided, but social media announcements around ticket availability and news bulletin alerts via 2012 digital channels insured touts couldn’t operate and fair distribution. Most people applaud the process, if not the result, since most people got something.

Network Integrity – We have all experienced the frustration of being at an event and eagerly wanting to share it only to see “Network Unavailable” as it collapses under the weight of activity. It doesn’t matter if it is Glastonbury, the FA Cup Final or the Queen’s Jubilee, we expect communications to seize up like a sprinter with a cramp at the critical moment. Not so at 2012.  At the Olympic Park there were in excess of 250,000 people all sharing and connecting on mobile devices and the network kept functioning. Photo and video uploads, results downloads, accurate geolocation check-ins. The Olympic legacy has gifted us a blueprint on how it can work for replication by organisers at other global events.

Memes Upon Memes – As the social media universe is wont to do, with every batch of images, video and stuff of emotion came a waterfall of humorous memes. Whether it was from scrappy gymnasts or just general comments on the games themselves no one was spared, including the Queen.

The other triumph of social media was its ability to dispel the media scaremongering. While headlines announced a travel network likely to meltdown, the travellers responded ‘live’ refuting media myths by saying how efficient it worked. The doom merchants seeking viewers warned us security was compromised, yet attendees were delighted to meet our servicemen and used Instagram to take pictures with them. Some said it would be too wet and crowds would stay away, but weather apps allowed us to anticipate the showers and pull on ponchos ahead of time.

Pessimists/Traditionalists (0) – Social Media Users (3)

Feedback loved The Games – the performances, the stories and the technological triumphs. For some, the Games will be remembered for the charismatic opening ceremony; for others it will be the achievements of the great Michael Phelps or perhaps even the outstanding success of Team GB. Few will recognize the impact of social media, and that in itself is an achievement immeasurable, since social media was so integrated we barely took a moment to appreciate its presence or contribution.

The sun will come up.

Charles Barkley will say something unintentionally hilarious.

Facebook will emulate what it doesn’t buy.

On the latter point, Wednesday evening Facebook debuted Places. The premise and execution of Facebook Places is remarkably similar to the first two sentences anyone may use to describe any number of check-in applications: It’s a way to share your actual location with others online; it also allows you to observe where others have checked in. Where many other applications seek to go from that starter definition, be it MyTown with games, Foursquare with tips, Gowalla with stickers, or ShopKick with deals, Facebook has simply stopped limply (but maybe effectively) at the first point of entry.

There’s a few other tricks to Facebook Places, and the following video, dripping with a sincerity that suggests they have suddenly figured out something others haven’t, demonstrates them:

Also inevitable is that Walt Mossberg of the Wall Street Journal will be given a test run before most other humans. Unlike his usually predictably estatic review of Apple products (generally done in time for Steve Jobs to use an actual Mossberg quote as a part of his Keynote presentations), Walt was actually a bit matter-of-fact about Facebook Places. Not cold or harsh, just… well, “Meh” would probably be the most effusive meta-adjective I’d use.

This is because what may become the most short-term-advantageous thing about Places is what it does for others, including those other check-in services. The APIs that could come streaming out could hook into and help fuel the growth of any number of companies Facebook as threatened or tried to buy recently, several of whom (Gowalla, Foursquare and Yelp) actually appeared in some form on stage with Facebook for Places’ debut. And yes, businesses can claim their “Place” via a Page as we and others mused months ago.

And what about long-term? Well you can better believe Facebook didn’t debut this to merely dip a toe in. Cross-platform geo-location ads, sacks of data on visitations and total domination of the “place” space is clearly a mid-term goal. Actual quote from Zuckerberg: “…certainly you can imagine these things in the future.”

We have been recently musing on the concept of “place” (including, “How Location Could Change The Future of Pages” last March) insofar as the web toys with tying itself to real-world geographies and the inherent opportunity and fear laden in those watching this wrestling match happen. But one thing we’ve always said about Facebook — their nearest, truest competitor in a spiritual sense was never MySpace, but Windows. They want to be the start, constant and end of the web for many people — the entry point in. And for many, they are. So now marry location ontop of that and you can begin to see how powerful they could become for the general public. For and to the general public, I should say. Being in Facebook, as a valid location that people actually visit in real life as well as “Like” could become the equivalent of having your name and address in the phone book in the 80′s and being a store that’s in the Mall. You want to be “seen” there- and now you can, by friends who aren’t even nearby to see you.

This, of course, begs the privacy question. But if we rest for a moment and assume that this is about who you allow to see your location, we can hopefully still talk about “place” and Facebook’s role in it in a rational fashion. I could choose to not tell a single friend where I was on Facebook and still find it incredibly valuable to know that a restaurant I hear about in Richmond, VA called “Strange Matter” has been visited by several of my friends, I could reference it in a Status Update and get real recommendations of what to eat there and tips such as bringing your own quarters for the vintage arcade games. 3/4 of that scenario already happened pre-Places, but now I could potentially verify that it’s a cool place that several of my less chatty friends have also patronized recently. It becomes an early indicator for me in a single search, allowing me then to pursue more info through other means (Yelp reviews, call-outs for other recommendations on Twitter, etc.).

Facebook Places doesn’t change the game as much as it does solidify it, make it whole and, likely, make it ubiquitous. What it does more than really innovate is fire a cannon in a battle previously fought by slingshots as it brings its half-a-billion active audience into the check-in game. But don’t be distracted by the battle to see whose or what type of check-in system wins. Instead, start to look ahead, with us, at what this will mean for the intersection of real and web location in the years ahead.

-Dean (@dbrowell)

UPDATED August 19, 2010: Not that Facebook Places is available in #RVA just yet. #Fail #FacebookPlaces, #Fail.

One last note: Notice that Places logo? As TechCrunch points out: “It’s a 4. In a Square. Yeah.“

Watch Bonnaroo Live on YouTube
Catch plenty of the acts you would be missing in all of their HD glory over at Bonnaroo’s YouTube channel! The channel also has a schedule of bands they will be broadcasting.

Listen to Bonnaroo Live on NPR
NPR will be carrying Bonnaroo live all weekend on their website and will be archiving the broadcasts for on-demand listening even after the weekend festival ends.

FourSquare and Bonnaroo Partner Up for a Rock Star Badge
If you’re at the event and an avid FourSquare user, you’ve probably been dreaming about getting a Bonnaroo-specific badge. Your dreams have come true! Check in to the Bonnaroo’s subvenues throughout the event for your Bonnaroo Rock Star badge!

Radio Free Feedback is our musical experiment, featuring musician friends, up-and-comers we can help highlight, observed acts of musical lunacy and more. We will occasionally feature musicians in our offices as well as out on the road, sometimes themed and sometimes just jamming. If you’re interested in being featured or hanging out, contact us through the info at the bottom of the page or click here.

Radio Free Feedback 1: Featuring Dave Tinney!

Thanks to everyone who tuned in live and in-person! The recorded show is in full below, check out and fan our Facebook Page for video clips, photos and more:

-Dean (@dbrowell) on behalf of the Feedback crew, old and new

-Dean (@dbrowell)