Tour kicks off Friday and includes 40 dates
Singer-songwriter Kate Voegele will be the first MySpace Records artist to land a sponsored headlining tour. The University of Phoenix is sponsoring the artist's 40-date North American "Back 2 School" trek, which launches Friday at the Glass House in Pomona, Calif.
As part of the sponsorship, Voegele, world Health Organization is a psychology major at the University of Phoenix, will chronicle her experience on the road through blogs and video diaries via MySpace.com/kateontour. The 21-year-old vocalizer also will upload sub-rosa footage from the term of enlistment, post bulletin updates and maintain the site's "Ask Kate" assembly. Part of the online content will delve into Voegele's effort to balance two college courses patch playing concerts every night.
Under the portion out, University of Phoenix volition cover some of Voegele's touring expenses in exchange for stigmatisation on Myspace, according to MySpace Records GM J Scavo.
"It's all wrapped up in this bigger ad package sold by MySpace," Scavo aforementioned. "The centrepiece is the media that's running on myspace.com, which drives traffic to this co-branded page."
Scavo far-famed that MySpace has been proactive in organizing one-off concerts and branding tours, and sees tour sponsorships as the "next evolutionary step" for the social networking site.
"The MySpace sales staff feels embolden at present to go offer these far more complex and integrated packages to advertisers," he said. "If we can maintain doing this, it adds awareness and creates some support for our efforts as a label."
The label exec is quick to note, however, that MySpace Records will continue to provide artists with fiscal tour support even if a sponsor isn't involved. "I would never wait for an advertiser to put a band on tour," Scavo said. "They need to be on tour."
Meanwhile, Voegele spent much of 2007 opening shows for such artists as Ben Lee, Matt Nathanson and Natasha Bedingfield, among others. "She's done sporadic headlining dates but has never through a full tour," Scavo said. "This is where it pays off."
Voegele, world Health Organization launched her career on primetime adolescent soap "One Tree Hill," is touring in support of her debut album "Don't Look Away," which has sold 187,000 copies in the U.S., according to Nielsen SoundScan. The artist's collective digital tracks deliver sold 435,000 downloads, according to Nielsen SoundScan.
Voegele's upcoming jaunt, which wraps Oct. 5 at Holloway Hall Auditorium in Salisbury, Md., will feature support in respective cities from artists Matt White, Amy Kuney, Keaton Simons, Brendan James, Josh Hoge and Leslie Roy.
