Bunbury Music Festival 524 Liberty Hill , OH 45202

Bunbury Music Festival 2014 Media Kit Table of Contents

1. News Release

2. Pitch Letter

3. Personality Profile

4. Backgrounder

5. Fact Sheet

Bunbury Music Festival 524 Liberty Hill Cincinnati, OH 45202

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Media Contact: April 21, 2014 John Rademaker Events Coordinator 440-241-0955 [email protected]

Bunbury Music Festival returns for third year this summer Nationally recognized acts to play in Cincinnati

CINCINNATI—Bunbury Music Festival is proud to announce its return for a third year this summer at Sawyer Point and Yeatman’s Cove from July 11-13. This year’s three-day, six-stage festival will feature local, regional and nationally recognized artists including The Flaming Lips, , , Empire of the Sun and many more. New to this year’s Bunbury Music Festival is the Bunbury Rewards Program. This program will give fans a chance to win prizes including concert tickets, shirts, limited edition posters and free VIP passes. Fans will be able to earn points toward prizes by buying tickets and promoting the festival through social media using the hashtag #BunburyRewards. Tickets are on sale now, with one-day tickets costing $65, three-day tickets costing $145 and three-day VIP tickets costing $325. Children under the age of 10 will be admitted free when accompanied by a ticket-holding adult; ticket prices are expected to rise after June 30. Adults of legal drinking age will be able to enjoy a wide selection of import and craft beers, courtesy of Bunbury Music Festival’s official beer sponsors Warsteiner USA and -more- Cincinnati’s own Christian Moerlein Brewing Company. Other sponsors include Four Entertainment Group, Rockstar Energy, Dutch’s Bar and Bottle Shop and more. To find out more about this year’s Bunbury Music Festival, please visit www.bunburyfestival.com.

About Bunbury Music Festival Bunbury Music Festival is an alternative music festival that will feature three days of performances on six stages throughout Sawyer Point and Yeatman’s Cove from July 11-13, 2014. Bunbury returns to Cincinnati for its third year following critical acclaim from USA Today, Pollstar and Yahoo! Music.

###

Bunbury Music Festival 524 Liberty Hill Cincinnati, OH 45202

John Rademaker, Bunbury Music Festival Events Coordinator Phone: 440-241-0955 Email: [email protected]

Dear Steve Baker,

Bunbury Music Festival will return from July 11-13 at Sawyer Point and Yeatman’s Cove. New to this year’s festival is the Bunbury Rewards program, which will give fans the opportunity to win a variety of prizes by promoting Bunbury Music Festival through social media. The program is part of the festival’s aim to break the barriers between the audience, organizers and artists.

“One thing Bunbury hopes to do is create an exchange; a place where fans can connect,” founder Bill Donabedian said in an interview with Soapbox Media.

By using the hashtag #BunburyRewards on Twitter, connecting social media accounts to the festival and promoting the festival in public, users will be able earn points redeemable for prizes. iTunes gift cards, tickets to upcoming concerts, limited-edition merchandise and three-day passes are among the prizes offered. The user with the most points by July 1 will be awarded the grand prize of two VIP tickets. New to this year’s festival, the VIP experience will include surprise performances, front-row access to the stages and air-conditioned tents.

Bunbury is currently offering the opportunity to interview one of the current top-five Bunbury

-more- Rewards users. Additionally, founder Bill Donabedian and I are available for interviews regarding the role of social media in this year’s festival. If you are interested in covering this story, please call me at 440-241-0955, or email me at [email protected]. I will be in touch within the next few days to see if you are interested.

Sincerely, John Rademaker

Bunbury Music Festival 524 Liberty Hill Cincinnati, OH 45202

Bunbury founder is making Cincinnati the place to bee Bill Donabedian doesn’t like leaving his hometown of Cincinnati for great entertainment, and he doesn’t like to see his friends do it either. So why should they have to? Over the past decade, the Bunbury Music Festival founder has proven Cincinnati’s worth as a cultural hub by bringing entertainment directly to the people of the Queen City. By now most Cincinnati locals will have heard of MidPoint Music Festival. The 13-year- old festival has been called the biggest and best indie music fest in the Midwest and has showcased top indie artists like The Breeders, Cut Copy and Kurt Vile. What most Cincinnatians may not know is that MidPoint was co-founded by Donabedian and Sean Rhiney in 2001. A music-lover at heart, Donabedian wanted a way bring in national touring artists while highlighting local musicians. “My mantra has always been that local music is the soundtrack of our city and an asset to be leveraged,” Donabedian said to co-founder Rhiney in an interview for Soapbox Media. The entrepreneurial duo set out to make MidPoint a unique festival experience by holding the event in various local bars and venues as opposed to the isolated locations typical of most music festivals. It’s hard to argue with the results: MidPoint has been a continued success, reaching an all-time high attendance of over 27,000 in 2013, even after Donabedian and Rhiney sold it to Cincinnati CincyBeat in 2008. Part of MidPoint’s growing popularity can be attributed to the Midpoint Indie Summer Series. Since 2009, this weekly series of concerts has highlighted local indie bands at Fountain Square to great acclaim. The fact that this series has done so well should come as no surprise considering the personnel involved: Donabedian was the managing director of Fountain Square -more- at the time. As director, he was responsible for daily programming and the creation of new events like the Cincinnati Beer Fest and the Strauss Troy Market before leaving in 2011. “Bill has brought new life to Fountain Square. He has put a system in place that will allow us to continue these great events in the future” CEO Steve Leeper said in a press release regarding his departure. After leaving Fountain Square, Donabedian still felt there was room for growth in Cincinnati. With summer festival sensations like Lollapalooza, Coachella and Bonnaroo gaining popularity every year by bringing dozens of high-profile acts to centralized locations, Donabedian began hatching a plan for “Cincy’s own Lollapalooza.” The result was Bunbury Music Festival, a three-day celebration of live music across six stages at Sawyer Point and Yeatman’s Cove. The festival was a remarkable success for its July 2012 debut, boasting such acts as Death Cab for Cutie and Weezer and gaining national attention from the likes of Yahoo! Music and USA Today. Now preparing for Bunbury’s third year, Donabedian hopes to make this festival even better than the last one. That may seem like a tall order given Bunbury 2013’s estimated attendance of over 60,000 and headlining acts like fun. and MGMT, but Donabedian is taking it one step at a time. “One thing I’ve learned about events: if you grow them too fast, it can cause a lot of problems,” Donabedian said in an interview with CincyMusic. The impact that Bill Donabedian has had on the Cincinnati music scene simply cannot be discounted. His entrepreneurial spirit and unrivaled enthusiasm for music have made him one of Cincinnati’s most treasured individuals. Having already accomplished so much in so little time, it’s a wonder what he might bring to Cincinnati in the future.

###

Bunbury Music Festival 524 Liberty Hill Cincinnati, OH 45202

Bunbury Music Festival Backgrounder ‘Bunbury’ is an imaginary term coined by Oscar Wilde in his play The Importance of Being Earnest. According to Wilde, to go bunburying is to have an excuse to get out of a tedious activity. That is exactly what entrepreneur and music enthusiast Bill Donabedian had in mind when he founded Bunbury Music Festival: to give people an excuse to enjoy themselves. Now entering its third year, Bunbury Music Festival is striving more than ever to give the people of Cincinnati and beyond an enjoyable summer festival. Bunbury Beginnings Donabedian was no stranger to large-scale musical events prior to founding Bunbury. In 2001, Donabedian and partner Sean Rhiney founded Cincinnati’s own MidPoint Music Festival as a way to showcase nationally recognized indie acts alongside local talent. The festival has been a continued success for over a decade. Donabedian also served as managing director of Fountain Square from 2006-2011, where he was responsible for the creation of such events as the Cincinnati Beer Fest and the MidPoint Indie Summer Series. After his success in these avenues, Donabedian was ready to take the next step. Noticing the growing popularity of weekend-long summer music festivals, he decided Cincinnati needed a large-scale festival of its own. “I’ve been waiting for someone else to do something like this. Like many things in life, sometimes you can’t wait for someone else to do it,” Donabedian said in an interview with Soapbox Media.

-more-

Bunbury in action In the summer of 2011, after a year of research and planning, Donabedian announced that the inaugural Bunbury Music Festival would take place in 2012 at the underutilized Sawyer Point and Yeatman’s Cove from July 13-15. Overseeing the operation top-to-bottom, Donabedian had modest goals for the first Bunbury Music Festival. Those goals were surpassed as over 40,000 people attended the festival to see indie acts like Capital Cities, Death Cab for Cutie, Weezer and many more. The festival earned national attention from the likes of Yahoo! Music and USA Today. With the goal of slow and steady growth in mind, Bunbury Music Festival aimed to improve in its sophomore outing by doing what it did right the first time around: booking quality acts that people want to see. “Our brand is, what I always say, is an authentic musical landscape. That’s what I’m trying to provide. So we want bands that are authentic and are not fabricated. They’ve worked hard, they’re great songwriters, they’re great performers,” Donabedian said in an interview with Pollstar. The approach proved to be a successful one. With highly regarded and popular acts like The National, fun., and MGMT, attendance for Bunbury Music Festival 2013 increased by fifty percent from the previous year. Looking Forward Bunbury Music Festival is again looking to improve as it approaches its third continuation from July 13-15 this year. New additions to this year’s festival include the Bunbury Rewards program, which offers prizes to fans who promote the festival through social media, and VIP tickets that offer surprise performances, front-row access and air-conditioned tents. The festival again boasts a strong lineup of over 80 local, regional and nationally recognized bands included The Flaming Lips, Fall Out Boy, Paramore and many more. This year, Bunbury Music Festival will have three years of experience under its belt. Given previous successes, and with Donabedian having festival dates already booked into 2021, it would seem that Bunbury Music Festival will be here to provide people of the Midwest and beyond with great musical entertainment for quite some time.

###

Bunbury Music Festival 524 Liberty Hill Cincinnati, OH 45202

Bunbury Music Festival Fact Sheet

About the founder  Founder Bill Donabedian is a member of the Cincinnati 40 Under 40 Alumni.  Donabedian was inspired to found Bunbury after seeing the continued popularity of MidPoint Music Festival, which he co-founded in 2001.  Donabedian first heard the term ‘bunbury’ in his nephew’s school play. He decided to use it for the festival when he learned the meaning of the word: to get out of doing something tedious. Bunbury History  Bunbury Music Festival’s 2012 debut featured artists such as Jane’s Addiction and Death Cab for Cutie, and was ranked ninth in a list of the top 11 festivals of 2012 by Yahoo! Music.  Bunbury Music Festival 2013 featured indie artists like The National and , and had an estimated attendance of over 60,000 people, a fifty percent increase from 2012.

Bunbury 2014  The official beer sponsors of Bunbury Music Festival 2014 are Warsteiner USA and the Cincinnati-based Christian Moerlein Brewing Company.  The new Bunbury 2014 mobile app will allow users to preview artists featured at the festival thanks to Slacker Radio.  Festival-goers will be able win prizes by promoting the festival on social media and in public using the new point-based Bunbury Rewards program. The highest point-scoreer will win two VIP passes.