Winner Revealed in Irish Battle of the Bands
The winner of the online Irish Battle of the Bands competition is ‘The Rogues’ from Houston, Texas after a closely contested final week of voting.
The competition, sponsored by Strangford Lough Brewing Company (SLBC) of Ireland and Diablo’s, Light Management Group (LMG), Las Vegas offered bands the chance to battle it out in an online Cross Atlantic “Battle of the Bands” competition with an amazing prize of flights, accommodation and a gig in Diablo’s on St Patrick’s Day 2010.
The five finalists; ‘The Galway Hooker Band’, ‘The Rogues’, ‘The Father Teds’, ‘Kilmaine Saints’ and ‘At First Light’ entered one final week of voting on 7th December. During the first two days it was very close with all bands doing well in the voting. As mid-week arrived, The Galway Hooker Band and The Rogues soared ahead battling it out right up until voting closed on 14th December 2009.
Multiple votes were continually removed throughout the competition with a large number being removed by competition organisers in the last hour.
At the final count the top two bands had almost 2,000 votes each but the Rogues beat their competition by just over 100 votes to claim the trip to Las Vegas and the St Patrick’s Day gig at Diablo’s (LMG) in the Monte Carlo Resort and Casino.
The competition began on 23rd November with 62 bands battling it out on the SLBC YouTube channel www.youtube.com/irishbotb. The bands received more than 10,400 votes from all around the World on the SLBC website, www.slbc.ie which also received over 105,000 page views.
“We are delighted by the interest shown in the competition from bands and bars supporting their acts by encouraging their customers to vote.” said Grace Mercer, competition organiser for SLBC. “We are now looking forward to the launch of our beer in January even more with all the requests we’ve received right across North America for our Irish Ale.”
SLBC are launching two of their Irish ales into North America in January 2010 and this project was designed to help them promote their beer with bands and bars across the States ahead of the launch.
Strangford Lough Brewing Company and Diablo’s LMG would like to say a special thanks to all the bands who took part in the competition and indeed everyone who voted to help send their band to Las Vegas.
Battle of the Bands Two is due to be launched in February 2010 and offers a trip to Belfast for bands in North America, Ireland or the UK. Please visit www.slbc.ie for more information.
