Y108 and the Spring Music Festival would like to congratulate the Silver Tongue Devils on becoming the Spring Music Festival 2010 Breakout Band Winners. Their first ever show was Breakout Band Regional qualification which they won. Their second show was the quarter finals and their third show ever was the finals, last night at the Corktown in front of a crowd of 350 people. What a feat!

We would also like to thank every one of the nearly 100 bands that participated from more than a dozen cities across Ontario. We all do this for our love of music...

Since the New Year rolled in, the Spring Music Festival team has traveled across Ontario with our entourage of judges, looking for the top up-and-coming bands in Ontario and we've received more than we bargained for. Over the past four months we've visited 6 Ontario cities, rocked out in 7 concert venues, hosted more than 20 Breakout Band Challenge's and seen over 100 great bands. Phew!

Each night we chose a winner based on our point scoring system which was made up of items like singing, band cohesiveness, audience interaction / response, musicianship, etc. On April 15th, 16th & 17th we narrowed down the 21 winners to just 10 during the quarter finals and they've all left a mark on the SMF Team and judges with their catchy hooks, shredding guitar solos, addictive melodies, and all around amazing live show. Each of the 10 bands were featured during the past 2 week’s on Y108 FM, where we asked Y108 listener’s to vote for their favourite song which we uploaded to the Y108 web site. These bands were by far the cream of the crop as far as independent talent goes.

Now it’s down to the 5 bands that received the most votes based on one vote per unique email address. You’re 5 finalists are:

Thursday May 13 we’ll feature these 5 bands at the Corktown Pub where they’ll rock out in front of a panel of industry judges and one band will walk away at the 2010 Y108 Spring Music Festival Breakout Band! The show is FREE, so we’ll see you there!

Description: The Spring Music Festival is a celebration of music that showcases both established and independent bands from North America. Under the festival umbrella, The Breakout Band Challenge will award one band $20,000 in prizes and be crowned the festival’s “Breakout Band”.

The prize package is designed as a “Development Package” where one up-and-coming artist will be provided with a group of prizes designed to help them record, market a single to radio, play high profile shows and gain overall awareness recognition. You do not have to apply to the festival in order to qualify for this contest; it’s 100% free to enter.

When: There will be 10-15 qualifying rounds, 6-8 bands per evening between January and March 2010. Each night there will be one winner who will move on the quarter-finals. The finals take place during the festival May 13-15, 2009 in Hamilton, Ontario.

Where: Target markets include Hamilton, Kitchener, Milton, Haldimand-Norfolk, Brantford, St. Catharine’s and Burlington. If your Ontario city is not listed, please register anyway and we’ll try to bring a show to your area.

***want to bring the Breakout Band Challenge to your city? Email us the names of at least 5 local bands and the name of a venue that you think would be appropriate and we’ll do our best! breakoutband@springmusicfestival.com

Format: All musicians will be expected to sign in prior to the show, in order to receive their delegate bag and band ‘manual’. They will perform a 25-35 minute set, judged on a variety of criteria (lyrics, composition, style/showmanship, musicianship) by a panel of expert industry judges. The winner will move on to the quarter-finals.

How it Works: The 15 bands with the overall highest scores will qualify and move on to the quarter-finals during the weekend following the festival’s media launch on April 15, 2010 at the Corktown Pub in Hamilton, Ontario. Of the approximate 15 bands, the 10 who achieve the highest score will each featured on Y108’s independent program “Get Hammered” where they will also have their song, bio and photo uploaded to Y108.ca. The on-air announcers will direct fans and Y108 listeners to the web site to vote for their favourite band. The five bands with the most online votes will move on to the finals during the festival.

Marketing the winning bands: This contest will be promoted heavily on Y108 throughout the entire campaign, from the first qualifying round up to the finals. Each year more than 10,000 fans listen to and vote for their favorite songs.

All of the qualifying bands will compete on April 16 & 17 in order to move on to the Semi Finals which is an online vote on Y108 FM. The 10 winning bands will be announced on-air on Monday April 19 at 4:00 PM with Andre Schikolenko

Each band will be featured on Y108’s independent program “Get Hammered” from April 19th through to April 30th and will have their song, bio and photo uploaded to Y108.ca. Fans and Y108 listeners will vote for their favourite band. Of the 10 bands being voted on, the five finalists receiving the highest number of votes will be announced on Monday April 31st at 4:00 PM with Andre Schikolenko and be invited to perform at the finals at the Corktown Tavern on the weekend of May 13 - 15, 2010.

-There are several reasons for this. The first is that we are a professional organization and we’re looking for professional bands. If a band is serious about their careers, bringing 20 people should not be too difficult. Furthermore, there is a great deal of cost putting together an event of this magnitude and this ensures that we do not lose money on any shows (more about this below). Lastly, no one wishes to play to an empty room. Every show that we have done so far, most of the fans have stayed until the end and when this happens, it’s always one of those shows to remember, a full house with loads of energy in the room.

-Didn’t make a good first impression? No problem, come and try again, we look forward to seeing genuine improvement.

- This is very simple. This is what the judges use to evaluate all performances:

-Once you are confirmed, just sit tight. Our crack team of concert producers is busily working behind the scenes. You can expect an email no later than 2-3 weeks before the show outlining every last detail. Usually we send them out well over a month in advance.

-I’ll bounce that question back to you: Do you as an original artist perform cover songs as part of your set? Some judges will penalize slightly for this while others, if it’s only one song, will not.

-All of our shows are 19+, however we understand that one only requires to be 18 to work in a licensed venue in Ontario. However we don’t know the full answer to this question and recommend that you contact someone who knows more about provincial liquor license.

This is the first year that our company (BLR Entertainment, organizers of the Spring Music Festival) has decided to take the Breakout Band contest on the road. In 2009 we contracted another company to handle this for us and in 2010 we thought that we wanted to do it ourselves to ensure good communication with the bands and a quality program that we can put our name on. With that, we started hosting regional qualifying rounds in our hopes of finding the next up and coming band.

Because of the hefty investment that we made in the prizes, combined with the cost to have our staff listen to, and contact bands, in addition to the costs involved with many of these venues, plus radio and print advertising, etc. there is no monetary compensation for the Breakout Bands for the 2010 season, however it's always been our policy to pay all bands that are performing as part of the Spring Music Festival. So if you blow away our judges during the Breakout Band series, there’s a good chance that you’ll be invited to perform at the festival. We are hoping to offer all participating bands in the Breakout Band series financial compensation in 2011.

What we will do in return is promote the hell out of the participating bands. Our web site receives 1.5 million hits per festival season, and growing. We will have your link on our site for several months and we also interview your band and include a clip of your live performance on our webisode. Click here to check it out (http://www.springmusicfestival.com/2010/home.htm). Our partners at Y 108 are also doing a fair bit of on air promo as well as on their web site. Some promotion include on-air ticket giveaway’s as well as promoting the bands on-air. For further details on how the Breakout Band Challenge can benefit your band, check out http://www.springmusicfestival.com/2010/bob.htm.