Opening of Van’s Warped Tour goes well

Above: Original Vans Warped Tour^® logo.

All photo credit Giovanni Galluci: giovanniluigigallucci@gmail.com, except *.

VANS WARPED TOUR®–America’s premiere music and lifestyle festival of the summer–is now on the road. Performing to record crowds during the day and reaching over 45,000 young fans in Dallas, Houston and San Antonio, TX this past weekend (6/24, 6/25, 6/26), the 2011 festival is not only a hit  it features the most eclectic line-up for the fest ever, spanning punk, hip-hop, rock, rap, indie-rock, metal, electronic, alt-country, dubstep, reggae, folk-punk and pop.

Performers such as Paramore, 3OH3!, A Day to Remember, Against Me!, Gym Class Heroes, Jack’s Mannequin, Big Chocolate, Yelawolf, The Devil Wears Prada, Lucero, The Aggrolites, Attack! Attack!, Unwritten Law, Less Than Jake, Pepper, We Came As Romans, Foxy Shazam, Go Radio, Grieves with Budo, The Ready Set, The Wonder Years, Enter Shikari, MC Lars, Big B., The Expendables are thrilling crowds at  a fan-friendly ticket price (for the list of 114 artists on every show go to: www.warpedtour.com/bands).

In the new issue of Rolling Stone, tour founder Kevin Lyman explains his new rules for curating the 2011 festival, “Ice-T once told me, ‘You gotta trust your gut.’ Before I tended to listen to other people and not my own ears.” For the tour’s 17^th year, Lyman took Ice-T’s advice and spent two months straight listening to potential acts before picking an eclectic 114-band lineup including electro-rap jokesters 3OH!3, metalcore crew the Devil Wears Prada and Eminem [a former Vans Warped Tour alumni himself] protégé Yelawolf. Warped standbys Paramore and Against Me! anchor the roster.”  (Rolling Stone, “Summer Rocks: Hottest Tours and Festivals,” July 7-21).

Continually innovative and forward-thinking–the tour was the first festival to have a Solar stage and use Biodiesel fuel on the road and still utilizes them–founder Kevin Lyman partnered with Klean Kanteen to provide unlimited FREE filtered-water refilling stations all summer long. Patrons can fill up any cup at the stainless steel stations as much as they need throughout the day completely FREE. In addition, the tour worked with venues and promoters on every stop to lower the price of bottled-water to $3.00 across the board at ALL VANS WARPED TOUR shows this summer.

In another unprecedented move, the tour–noticing a need at the shows last year–partnered with Live Nation to offer a first-ever, pre-order food package for concert goers that can be purchased online for $8.50 in advance of the show (available cities listed in bold below). Once purchased, fans can print out the voucher and redeem it at the concessions stand on the day of the show. “I noticed kids leaving early last year and asked them why, they were hungry and ran out of money after spending their last dime on merch,” notes Lyman. “This hasn’t been done before, but it seemed we could find a way to make sure everyone stayed healthy throughout the day and got something to eat onsite.”

www.vanswarpedtour.com

A patron fills up with Free Filtered Water at the Klean Kanteen station. Credit: *Paul Kersh.