I'm not bothered by the Bud Rising thing. You should see the amount of "strategic partners" a similar event such as CMJ has. Their partnership with Sonic Bids to handle the registration for bands was a bit of a pain in the arse though; horrible, frustrating site to navigate.

I quite like Sonic Bids - very useful if you're applying to a few festies - really nice and easy to put together EPK

this seems to tie into the discussion elsewhere bout Republic of Loose (of Of Loot) doing the Vodafone thing. In the case of RoL, theyve done loads and loads of these corporate tie-in gigs - with 3, MySpace etc etc i think some people have problems with this and others dont. myself, it really depends. i've never enjoyed a bud rising event cos it really does seem to be all about the drink - i've even seen bud rising people going around making sure all the beermats were the right way up! in a lot of cases, though, events just would not happen without sponsorship. for HWCH, the Bud Rising thing means they dont have to charge bands an entry fee, which is a small but important thing its noticable that a growing number of music events and happenings in ireland involve some corporate thing or other. would be interesting to see other people's views on this trend

I hate sponsored gigs, from the pissy beer to the branding of everything. Bud are the worse offenders. The beer is just pure evil to start and they drape everything with their logo. But suppose they are a necessary evil or are they? We got by in the past without ubiquitous mass branding. Now every gig is sponsored by someone. It's bad enough with the MCD/Ticketmaster/Venue monopoly without then having to buy a certain kind of beer, text a certain mobile operator to go to a gig, visit a certain website etc. Just sell the tickets for f**k sake. All very depressing. It was an awful sight on Friday where literally hundreds of people were wearing Vodafone dogtags. It was similar to the Oxegen stage times thingy but there was absolutely no reason to wear one. All it contained was a few ads for vodafone. There was no stage times, no goodies etc yet hundreds of zombies happily stuck one around their neck. The gig was plastered with vodafone stuff yet the only thing that said ROL was the drum kit. I think the mass branding takes away some of the atmosphere too. I want to be at a live rock gig not an advertisement. Particularly bad when it's a product that you particularly despise.

i guess it depends on how it affects you. sponsorship is insane these days, EVERYTHING seems to be sponsored. the fact is bands have to be able to say they're using them, and not being used. personally i tend not to think less of an event if its sponsored - ie oxegen, hwch, etc but think more if its not. bearing in mind that pretty much every piece of music you hear has the money of a big bad company behind it somewhere, either records, or media companys or adverts, its just up to you how you react to it.