Third Day Tour A Hit So Far

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As the fall’s largest Christian concert tour— World Vision’s “Make A Difference Tour”—treks across the country to 20 cities during the month of October, fans are pouring into arenas and showing up in record numbers online to see some of the industry’s top names together on one stage. Featuring New York Times best-selling author Max Lucado and GRAMMY® award-winning recording artists TobyMac, Michael W. Smith and Third Day, the Make A Difference Tour has already played in front of nearly 40,000 people in its first two weekends alone, and has now set a new record as the largest live webcast of any Christian concert ever reported when its recent Oct. 7 show streamed live from Austin, Texas to nearly 186,000 people, from 87 different countries.

The live webcast was broadcast on HearItFirst.com in conjunction with broadcast producer and bandwidth providers 3TierStrategy, LLC and NetDNA. Delivered through 3Tier Strategy’s EZ Live Stream Live Event app, the concert was viewed live via the Web, iPhone, Live in Facebook and also included a text chat for people all around the world to communicate. Viewers were able to give suggested donations of $10 to access the live concert stream, with donated monies to benefit World Vision’s Ugandan Food and Water Relief efforts ( http://media.hearitfirst.com/download/madtour/Uganda.pdf). A second webcast is planned for the Oct. 23^rd concert in Wichita Falls, Texas. Viewers may sign up at http://live.hearitfirst.com/madtour2010/.

“HearItFirst.com is all about connecting fans with the artists and music that they love,” says HearItFirst.com President Mark Adkison. “The webcast completely blew away our expectations. The sheer volume of people who tuned in to watch great music, a heartfelt challenge from Max Lucado and to get involved with World Vision is truly amazing. For us to be involved with these artists and World Vision is truly humbling and we hope to continue bringing more of these events to folks around the world in the future.”

“It has always been the passion of 3TierStrategy to work with great partners and ministries to help spread the word and deliver blessings to those in need via internet media,” adds 3Tier Strategy CEO Perry Johnson. “To work with partners such as Hear It First and World Vision is a true blessing itself, but then to also know that on that night we reached nearly 186,000 viewers and blessed them where they were is truly amazing.”

“NetDNA was chosen by 3Tier Strategy as their Tier 1 streaming provider to stream the largest Christian concert webcast on record to thousands of viewers. We are very pleased with the success of the event and look forward to more in the future,” says NetDNA CEO Ben Neumann.

Inspired by the themes of Lucado’s forthcoming book, Outlive Your Life: You Were Made to Make a Difference, the Make A Difference Tour , produced by World Vision and AEG Live, will make a difference for children by helping to raise up sponsors for 25,000 children through World Vision. Lucado set the goal last year in honor of his 25^th year of publishing in 2010; he is donating 100% of author royalties from all Outlive Your Life products to benefit children and families through World Vision and other ministries of faith-based compassion. So far, more than 1,600 child sponsorships have been confirmed from Make A Difference Tour attendees in the first two weekends, and more than 3,000 sponsorships have been pledged in the tour markets by churches who will participate in a World Vision Hope Sunday at their church.

Tickets are still available for these remaining dates on the Make A Difference Tour:

10-14 San Jose, CA HP Pavilion at San Jose

10-15 Bakersfield, CA Rabobank Arena

10-16 Ontario, CA Citizens Business Bank Arena

10-17 Glendale, AZ Jobing.com Arena

10-21 Colorado Springs, CO World Arena

10-22 Lubbock, TX United Spirit Arena

10-23 Wichita Falls, TX Kay Yeager Coliseum

10-24 Topeka, KS Kansas ExpoCentre

10-27 Cedar Rapids, IA US Cellular Center

10-28 Green Bay, WI Resch Center

10-29 Dayton, OH Nutter Center

10-30 Fayetteville, NC Crown Coliseum

* All dates are subject to change without notice.

Visit www.MakeADifferenceTour.com for ticket info and tour updates.

AEG Live/MEG is a subsidiary of Anschutz Entertainment Group, one of the leading providers of live entertainment and sports in the world. AEG Live is dedicated to all aspects of live entertainment and multi-media production and is the second largest concert promotion, special event and touring company in the world. AEG Live has an international reach with regional and local presence in Los Angeles, New York, Las Vegas, London, Nashville, Houston, Dallas, St. Louis, Atlanta, Denver and Seattle.

World Vision is a Christian humanitarian organization dedicated to working with children, families and their communities worldwide to reach their full potential by tackling the causes of poverty and injustice. For more on World Vision, go to www.worldvision.org.

HearItFirst.com, a division of Spinnaker Media Fund I, is the definitive online destination for the Christian music and entertainment fan. Filled with rich content covering the entire Christian music and entertainment industry, HIF boasts a membership of over 245,000 registered users, and hosts an array of features on the site, including Exclusive Content Rich Media – videos, photos & audio streams, Genre Sections, Artist Pages, News, New Releases, Store, Tour Information, Community and Blogs. HearItFirst.com is THE destination for Christian music enthusiasts to connect within a fan community to enjoy the newest and most exclusive content and information about their favorite artists.

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