| Type | Social Enterprise |
|---|---|
| Industry | Education, Music, Business, Internet, Social Networking, Events |
| Founded | 2003 |
| Headquarters | Dublin, Ireland |
| Key people | Robert Stephenson Founder / President |
| Products | Schools Programmes, DVDs, CDs, Concerts, Bands |
| Website | www.blastbeat.org |
Blastbeat is a multi-disciplinarian international social enterprise and music business programme and competition for second level or high school children. Blastbeat has music as its core product and also its hook, as music and multimedia is a key interest for the majority of teenagers.
Blastbeat.tv is an alternative youth community and event promoter. It is a subsidiary of Blastbeat.
Blastbeat owns Blastbeat.tv and runs the annual Blastbeat Music Business Game which has been running in Ireland since 2003. Coca-Cola are the sponsors of Blastbeat in Ireland. Mr. Price are the sponsors in South Africa.
It organises concerts all over Ireland and has also branched out to the United States, South Africa, the UK, Slovakia, Czech Republic and Belgium in recent years.
Contents |
Blastbeat Education is an NFP that has developed a fun & exciting Music & Multimedia Business progamme offered to teens and schools around the world. Blastbeat utilizes music and multimedia to engage with teens, captivating them in a three-month social entrepreneurship co curricular / after schools programme. Blastbeat leverages their passion for music, multimedia, social media, making friends and some money as they have fun learning and experiencing first hand business, technical, inter-personal, intra-personal, team-work, communication, music, social, media & related skills. Blastbeat also promotes and encourages young original songwriters & musicians, supporting youth communities on a local & global level, empowering teens to create social enterprises creating community and social capital to help bring about change for the good of society. Teenagers organize themselves into Music & Multimedia Companies (MMCs) to compete in the business programme, planning, promoting and hosting a live music event.Within the Blastbeat programme there are two competitions in one that help encourage a true sense of real life, exciting social entrepreneurship and creative skills. A) the social enterprise competition - winners receive mentorship and investment B) the music competition for competing artists – winners get managed and recorded. Each member of the company taking on a different job role which include CEO, Company Secretary and managers in Sales, Marketing, Public Relations, Ecology/CSR, Art & Design, Finance, Event, Talent scouting, Web content creation & Video crew, Photographers, Journalist etc ultimately producing a Battle of the Bands concert in order to identify the best musical talent in their neighborhoods.
By participating in the Blastbeat Programme, teenagers self-confidence, self-belief, self-esteem, social and life skills are boosted enormously. Blastbeat teaches real life creative and business-skills, where teens are creating, learning, and sharing in a structured online & offline environment that is centered on the music & multimedia business. These empowered teens then donate 25% of their profits from their gig to charity, making them young social entrepreneurs
Blastbeat Education is also looking for partners to provide the programme to young people in care who are not in school.
Blastbeat Education is seeking to bring Blastbeat programme into schools, youth organisations, or youths in care or to at risk youth groups, We wish to particularly help underserved teenagers gain real useful and relevant life experiences to promote their personal, social, educational and vocational development preparing them for their role as autonomous, participative and responsible members of society.
The programme is supported by educators and facilitated by Blastbeat employees and student mentors giving added value to the student’s school experience after school. In the UK Blastbeat is offering the programme FREE to 66 schools in London for the current school year with support from the Dept of Children of School & Families(as part of the city challenge programme).The Final for Blastbeat in Blastbeat is the educational branch of the Blastbeat Network; an online and offline youth community of musicians and music lovers who meet regularly at Blastbeat Live music events and online on the creative and social network www.blastbeat.tv Blastbeat has run in schools in Ireland. Belgium, South Africa, the United Kingdom, Slovakia the United States in New York City,San Jose, San Fran, Los Angeles, Austin and Chicago. Blastbeat has just starting in Japan (www.blastbeat.jp) and is now being franchised out to several companies.
The main challenge for the MMC is to organize & produce their own live music event. They do this by finding the best of original music talent in their local areas and showcasing them. Winning Bands are selected by a panel of industry professionals who volunteer their services. The winning act receives a prize of a development deal offer from Blastbeat Music.
Blastbeat therefore allows young people to help shape the future of their own local music scene and ultimately decide what bands/musicians will be next big thing. As an MMC, students carry out a variety of specific tasks throughout a 3 Month Module and are graded both on a continuous assessment bases and their presentation at the MMC Exhibition on the day of their Regional Final. The Blastbeat programme that began in Ireland in 2003 is a means of nurturing multimedia, musical and business skills among teenagers while encouraging them to work as part of a team and invest in their local community. Since its inception, Blastbeat has enjoyed considerable success in Pilots globally. Blastbeat has staged over 800 alcohol and drug free concerts have been staged by more than 3,500 young bands to audiences of more than 250,000 young people.
The Blastbeat programme is provided to schools, students, & bands free of charge and is financed through a combination of sponsorship income, foundation and government support & grant aid.
Blastbeat aims to run in over 30 countries by 2014.
Blastspace.tv is the creative and social network of the Global Blastbeat Brand. By Bands For Fans, Blastbeat.tv brings together music creators and music consumers. It provides a forum where bands and fans can come together along with event organisers, music writers, individual artists, promoter and producers.
Blastbeat.tv provides an online social network and connection between the offline and online musical worlds and empowers teens to create and choose their own music.
The site also features videos and recordings of BlastSpace and Blastbeat bands as well photos from Blast gigs dating back from 2004 to the present day. Despite Blastbeat.tv being almost entirely based in Ireland, the site mentions a worldwide community with intentions to branch out to other countries. In 2007 Blastbeat setup in New York, Los Angeles and Cape Town and the UK.
There was a promotion of Blastbeat in Ireland where the Coca Cola Blastbeat awards were set up on Bebo. Here the band whose song was added to most playlists on Bebo got the chance to go straight into the finals. Blastbeat.tv members receive reductions on tickets to the National Final every May.
Blastbeat Music has been created to help promote bands that were discovered and developed through the Blastbeat schools competition and the Blastbeat Live gigs.
Blastbeat Music is part of the commercial arm of the Blastbeat network that creates, aggregates and commercializes the Intellectual Property Rights primarily in the forms of music, film and associated merchandise.
Typically Blastbeat will offer to sign an artist or band for a series of three or four EPs Before offering a deal to an artist, Blastbeat Music will generally use its proven filtration and teenage approval formula of the Blastbeat system of Blastbeat Battle of the Bands.
Blastbeat Live is a national gigging tour organised by bands, fans and alumni of the Blastbeat Programme. Blastbeat Live allows young people the opportunity to organise gigs in their hometown - giving them direct input into their local [music] and social scene.
The Blastbeat Live circuit allows those who have excelled in the Blastbeat schools programme to continue on with their passion and it also gives unsigned young bands an opportunity to build fan bases and get gig experience. The alumni, fans and bands who have been with Blastbeat for several years organise the over 18s events targeting college and university students.
Blastbeat Live events run throughout the year. During the summer months various competitions and initiatives exist to cater for the ever growing new band population applying through Blastbeat.tv. Summer 2008 saw the Blastbeat / Sunday World 'LA or Busk' Competition. It involved 8 heats to take place all over Ireland, and one final where the winning act will win a trip to Los Angeles. The act that won was the Dublin based Shower Scene.
2003 / 2004 - Silence Jakk!
2005 / 2006 - The Impressionists
2006 / 2007 - Nightbox (Formerly Hotstop)
2007 / 2008 - Silkeborg
2003 / 2004 - Phonic TY, St. Columba's College, Stranorlar, Co. Donegal
2005 / 2006 - Pulse TY, St. Columba's College, Stranorlar, Co. Donegal
2006 / 2007 - Criminal Records, Ballincollig CS, Co. Cork (Caoimhe Horgan - National/International CEO)
2007 / 2008 - Audio Circus, Ballincollig CS, Co. Cork
2008/2009 - Pandora's Beatbox, Ballincollig CS, Co. Cork
2003 / 2004 - Nestor
2004 / 2005 - In a Daze
2005 / 2006 - Revox
2004 / 2005 - Ultrason
2006 / 2007 - Hamza
2006 / 2007 - Musikaap
2006 / 2007 - The Michael Craig Band
2007 / 2008 - Somewhere Else
2006 / 2007 - High Voltage, Santa Monica High School
2007 / 2008 - Urban Revolt Records, Animo Film & Theater Arts School
2006 / 2007 - Vertigo
2006/2007 - Black Sheep Records, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis High School, Times Square
2007/2008 - Carpe Muse, Curtis High School, Staten Island
2007 / 2008 - Blues Mafia
2007 / 2008 - DarthBeta Records, Akins High School, Austin, Texas
2007 / 2008 - nAked bridge
2007 / 2008 - The Paranoid
2007 / 2008 - TBD -
BAND: 2010 - Empty Headz