Rockstar Energy Drink UPROAR Festival Roars Into Fargo

By Jeannette Madden
Staff Writer

The first annual Rockstar Energy Drink UPROAR Festival hits the Fargodome October 3, 2010. With the first of nine bands taking the stage at 3:15 p.m., UPROAR’s stellar lineup includes Disturbed, who—following three consecutive number one album debuts— released their new album “Asylum,” on August 31, and co-headliner Avenged Sevenfold, whose newly-released album “Nightmare” debuted at number one on the “Billboard 200” album chart.

In addition, the main stage will feature Stone Sour, whose newest release “Audio Secrecy” came out September 7 and Halestorm, who are touring in support of their self-titled debut CD. The lineup also features performances from Jägermeister Second Stage headliners HellYeah, whose new CD “Stampede” recently debuted at number eight on the “Billboard 200” album chart, as well as Airbourne, Hail The Villain, New Medicine and the local Jägermeister-sponsored opener, 3 Pill Morning.

The UPROAR Festival includes an awareness campaign for the national not-for-profit Child Find of America organization. Because of this, Corey Taylor, vocalist of Stone Sour, recorded a public service announcement for Child Find of America, which can be heard by going to http://www.RockstarUPROAR.com/uproartv.

UPROAR’s Child Find of America awareness campaign also includes wrapping the tour’s semi trucks with images of missing children, providing nationwide exposure on major highways throughout North America for over six weeks; a text-to-donate campaign (Text “FIND” to 50555 to donate $5); social media outreach to bring safety messages and images of missing children to rock music lovers worldwide; and an onsite presence at each festival date.

UPROAR’s founder, John Reese, is no stranger to festivals. He produces a number of festivals, including Taste of Chaos and Mayhem, and said that UPROAR is another in a line of festivals that his company is bringing forth. “We’re in the rock business and we’re in the business of breaking bands and making bands more popular.” Reese explained. “I’m good friends with Disturbed and I’m good friends with Avenged Sevenfold so I approached them to see if they wanted to climb aboard for the inaugural year…in these difficult times with record labels, the best way to break artists is through touring and this is a way to showcase a lot of great bands.”

When asked how Fargo made the list of stops on the UPROAR Festival tour, Reese explained that “One of the reasons we’re going to Fargo is it doesn’t get a lot of shows. My Mayhem Festival does about thirty dates throughout the country and we didn’t want to play a lot of the same cities that that tour goes to so Fargo was on the list. It’s a great rocking town. I used to work with Guns N’ Roses and we played the Fargodome back in 1991, I think, and music fans, they love it there so Fargo was one of our picks to take the new festival to.”

UPROAR was able to team up with Rockstar Energy Drink because, according to Reese, Rockstar’s owner and marketing team are ‘cognizant of the music and lifestyles of music that persists in their beverage category. It’s a way for them to build a culture around their product. It’s smart marketing. They help me by providing me with resources to take this all over the country and I provide them a way to get to see half a million people.”

Reese says this UPROAR Festival is “Year one of hopefully many years to come. We’ve had a really, really successful first year in what is a very difficult touring environment and we’ve exceeded our expectations…so, hopefully, it happens year after year.”

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If You Go

What: Uproar Festival
Where: FargoDome
When: Sun, Oct 3, 3:30pm
Info: 701.241.9100