News: Copper Mountain looks to locals to fill Sunsation roster

By Billy Thieme | April 15th, 2011 | No Comments »

This will all melt soon, but before then, why not check out some free concerts -- including some from Denver bands -- at the base of the mountain? Photo by John Wenzel, heyreverb.com.

Copper Mountain is about to kick off its 11th annual Sunsation event, the wrap-up party that spans the final two weekends of the season — and starts this Saturday. But this year organizers decided to include some Front Range bands in the fun.

To fill out the live music schedule, the resort has set up a virtual battle of the bands on Facebook and invited local and regional acts, as well as their fans, to participate. The reward: a 30-minute time slot onstage at the resort, opening for one of four (wildly varying) headlining acts — Quiet Riot, Gin Blossoms, Reel Big Fish or The Samples.

“After we’d signed the other acts and built out the schedule, we found we had a few slots left open,” said David Roth, Copper’s public relations spokesman. “So we thought, ‘Why not get some local or regional bands with Facebook?’”

Using the social media platform to recruit local talent turned out to be not only cost-effective, it was also hugely successful. Copper posted an open invitation on its fan page that encouraged local and regional bands to post a link, encourage their fans to “Like” it, and the rest seemed to take care of itself.

“We had more than 40 bands sign up for the promotion in the couple of weeks we ran it,” Roth said. “The response was huge… In weeks previous, our fan page got about 50 new fans per week. In the past few weeks since we started the promotion we’ve increased by more than a few thousand, easily.”

After the promotion ended last Wednesday (April 13), Copper’s marketing department tallied the results and chose the best bands with the most votes. The winners are Prime Element and Vices I Admire, who will take the stage this weekend (April 16 and 17) in the opening slots for Gin Blossoms and Quiet Riot, respectively, and Gunslinger, Post Paradise, Something Underground, the Stolen Instruments, Wire Faces and Wandering Monks opening for the Samples and Reel Big Fish.

“It was a win-win proposition for everyone involved,” Roth explained. “We got to help promote local and regional bands and offer them some time in our awesome venue with some really cool acts like Quiet Riot or Gin Blossoms, and they helped us promote the event and the mountain.”

The two weekends feature games, competitions and family-fun activities, anchored by live music on the Burning Stones Plaza at the base of the American Eagle lift. While past Sunsation parties have primarily been booked with national touring acts, this year the resort welcomed this opportunity to search locally, and is considering using similar promotions for future year-round events.

“We have so many events — Guitar Town, Copper Country, etc. — and all of them present this kind of opportunity for promotion,” Roth said. “We’re going to definitely consider (it) as a possibility in the future.”

Keep your eyes open, local bands and hipsters. Seems like a sweet chance to spread your sound — and the scene — up into the mountains (assuming you don’t mind opening for some bands that are a few years past their sell-by date).

A gig’s a gig, right?

Follow our news and updates on Twitter, our whereabouts on Foursquare and our relationship status on Facebook. Or send us a telegram.

Billy Thieme is a Denver-based writer, an old-school punk and a huge follower of Denver’s vibrant local music scene. Follow Billy’s explorations at DenverThread.com, and his giglist at Gigbot.