n-1+Soup [Danny Malks' Blog]

Live8

The ONE campaign work that I've been doing has been focused, in the near term, on generating awareness and support for relief in Africa, leading up to the G8 Summit, which is being held on July 6th in Scotland. In a related project, I led our effort to build a similar infrastructure to power Live8, a day of global concerts focused toward this same end. You may have seen our technology in action, if you watched any of the Live8 broadcast coverage on July 2nd, 2005 and saw the names of people who had sent text messages scrolling across the top of the stage in Philadelphia on a 5 ft x 50 ft screen. In the image to the right, you see me filtering names on our position in front of the stage. Our screen is just under the "Philadelphia" banner at the top and between the two "Live8" side banners. Bon Jovi is performing at the moment and you can see a close up on the screens to the left and right of the Live8 side banners.
	The image to the left shows Will Smith's crowd-pleasing performance, with the call to action ("Text Message your name to UNITE [86483]") scrolling by on the screen above. We transitioned the screen several times an hour between (a)the scrolling names of people who texted in via their mobile devices and (b)this call to action.   As a Philly native, Will Smith really connected with the crowd both as one of the many celebrity hosts and as a performer, reuniting with Jazzy Jeff and performing once again as "DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince", which is how these two got started together in the late 1980's.
It took a heroic effort by numerous people to pull this event off and while the MTV broadcast coverage has been widely dismissed as weak, the show appeared to be much appreciated by the audience in attendance, which has been estimated at one million people by the city of Philadelphia. In the image to the right you see Destiny's Child performing their song "Say My Name", with the band directly referencing the text messaging effort and the names streaming in on the banner above. With well over 20 million messages reportedly sent in as part of this global day of concerts, this effort was a huge success and should provide added momentum heading into the G8 summit this week. To try for youself: Send a text message with your full name to UNITE (86483) and support the ONE Campaign and the Live8 List!

Posted at 01:00MD Kor 06, 2005 by malks in General  |  Comments[6]