Cingular Rocks With Perks for Vans Warped Tour

Cingular Wireless is using its sponsorship of the Vans Warped Tour 2006, a touring music festival, to provide its customers with cool perks including ring tones, VIP access, phone tattoos and more.

The tour, which kicked off June 16 and runs through Aug. 11, features bands who play on eight different stages throughout the concert setting, giving fans a chance to hear a variety of genres, including hard rock, punk, heavy metal and hip hop.

During the events, Cingular customers can opt-in at CingularSource.com/Warped to receive tour-related content, such as band line-ups and autograph session schedules for shows via their phones. Customers can purchase tour artist ringtones and live tones, for $2.49, as well as exclusive graphics for $1.49. The wireless carrier partnered with InfoSpace, a content provider, to produce and license tones with participating bands and their labels.

Cingular customers will also be given access to:

• VIP Entrance—which gives them express entrance into the venue by showing their Cingular phone.
• Cingular Signing Stage—where band members meet fans and sign autographs.
• Ink Your Phone Booth—where customers can have their phones personalized by tattoo artists while at the show.
• Artist Alerts—which gives customers a heads up on their handset about when an artist will appear and how to win a chance to skip the line at the signing stage to meet their favorite bands.

"The Vans Warped Tour offers us a great opportunity to showcase our wireless technology, while staying connected to our young customers through the artists and events they want to see and hear," said David Garver, executive director, segment marketing and sponsorships, Cingular in a statement.

The Atlanta-based company is also the official sponsor of a Reverse Daycare tent, where kids can drop off parents who accompany them to the concert. While these youngsters enjoy their favorite bands, parents can mingle in the tent and try out Cingular's latest products and services or relax, watch a movie and enjoy a cool beverage.

Later this summer, Cingular will give its customers access to recorded video footage of the live performances through Cingular Sounds Live at Vans Warped Tour. The company will also offer live tones of select band performances, allowing fans to set one of the Warped Tour performances as their ringtone.

Cingular Wireless serves 55.8 million customers and is a joint venture between AT&T, Inc. and BellSouth Corp.

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