SummerStage Seeks Fans to Help Curate Artists to Play 30th Anniversary Season

City Parks Foundation's SummerStage performing arts festival is looking for fans to help curate the upcoming 30th anniversary season in 2015. SummerStage, New York's largest free performing arts festival annually brings over 100 free performances to parks throughout the five boroughs. With performances ranging from American pop, Latin and World music to dance, comedy and theater, SummerStage fills a vital niche in New York City's summer arts festival landscape.

For the upcoming 30th anniversary, SummerStage has partnered with WeDemand, a groundbreaking website that gets fans directly involved in the process of making a concert happen. WeDemand will share fan generated demand data with SummerStage's team of curators, enabling a one-on-one conversation to inform them of the artists that festival goers want to see perform.

In the first part of the campaign, audiences will be able to submit any artist they want to see play the festival. Afterwards, they will be able to select from a short list of the most popular artists. In the final phase, the most demanded artists will have their concerts confirmed once enough donors have pledged in a crowdfunding campaign. These concerts will all be free.

Some notable SummerStage alumni already in WeDemand include: De La Soul, Two Door Cinema Club, Little Dragon, Mix Master Mike, Broken Social Scene, Grizzly Bear, Vampire Weekend, Thievery Corporation, Jamie Lidell, The National, Dirty Projectors, Explosions in the Sky, The XX, Friendly Fires, Beirut, and more.

To cast your vote on who you want to see perform for the 30th anniversary season, visit www.WeDemand.com/SummerStage

Timeline:

July 1 - September 30 - Fans can submit any artist in the world via WeDemand
October 1 - December 31 - Top artists emerge and are pushed/promoted through fan base
January 1 - February 28 - SummerStage crowdsources funding for a show

About City Parks Foundation
City Parks Foundation (CPF) is the only independent, nonprofit organization to offer park programs throughout the five boroughs of New York City. CPF works in over 750 parks citywide, presenting a broad range of free arts, sports, and education programs, and empowering citizens to support their parks on a local level. Programs and community building initiatives reach more than 600,000 people each year, contributing to the revitalization of neighborhoods throughout New York City.

About WeDemand
WeDemand gives power to the fans to demand shows and creates a direct conversation with their favorite artists. When an event comes together as a result of WeDemand, it amplifies engagement and improves the overall live event experience for both fans and artists. WeDemand shares fan demand and data with artists and promoters, enabling a one-on-one conversation, while helping inform the best places to tour. By granting ownership of the communication channel and market insight derived from WeDemand users, artists are able to directly connect with fans to sell tickets, merchandise, promote new music or simply thanks them for their support. WeDemand has been invited to the TechCrunch Disrupt Battlefield, TEDx (Rio), MIT (Boston), Canadian Music Week (Toronto), Creativity World Forum (Belgium).