The Blue Ridge Blues & BBQ Festival :: Advertising Campaign
The Blue Ridge Blues & BBQ Festival :: Advertising Campaign
Artist: Brian Zickafoose
Client: The Blue Ridge Blues Society
Event Location: Roanoke, Virginia
For ten years, the studio of Brian Zickafoose was a proud sponsor of the Blue Ridge Blues Society’s Blue Ridge Blues & BBQ Festival. Beginning in 2005, Zickafoose chaired the Blues Society’s marketing committee, while heading up the festival’s creative and advertising duties. In 2010, Zickafoose snagged multiple American Ad Federation ADDY’s for his work on the festival art and marketing.
This year’s campaign included various advertising elements for print, online and television:
• Promotional Handbills and Posters
• Web Banners and Print Ads
• Outdoor Billboards and On-Screen Cinema Ads
• Festival Program and Event Signage
• Ticketing and Display Marquees
• Sponsor Kits
For our festival merchandise, we produced a limited runs of individually hand numbered and signed, 6-color silk screen, commemorative art prints. We applied 5 soy-based inks: Black, Metallic Gold, Metallic Silver, Light Blue, Cream on 100 lb. French Paper Hot Fudge Pop-Tone Stock. For the official festival t-shirts, we silk-screened the 5 colors on distressed cream, sand and charcoal tee’s for a rustic, worn look.
Woove Reporter Eva Luton Interviews Promoter Brian Zickafoose About Art, Music, and the Future of Attitudes Bar and Cafe
WUVT-FM 90.7 (Woove)
Blacksburg, Virginia
Whatever Happened to Attitudes? Woove Reporter Eva Luton Interviews Promoter Brian Zickafoose About Art, Music, and the Future of Attitudes Bar and Cafe.
At the end of the last semester, rumors began to circulate around Blacksburg that Attitudes Bar and Cafe was discontinuing their popular calendar of live music and entertainment acts. In the wake of the closure of local music club The Lantern and a significant decline in the frequency of underground concerts in Blacksburg, such as house shows in basements and living rooms, The Woove staff was eager to find out the truth about the fate of Attitudes. A small team of reporters organized an interview with local music promoter, artist, and cultural figure Brian Zickafoose, who has most recently been responsible for booking shows at the venue. Woove reporter Eva Luton asked Zickafoose about these rumors and about his own career, including his art that appeared on a recent issue of local arts and culture magazine 16 Blocks and his history in promoting music in Blacksburg, especially at the now defunct Lantern. Read more or watch the complete interview here.
The New Mastersounds :: Show Poster
The New Mastersounds are one of the most dynamic touring acts in funk music today. Their music calls to mind the bygone era of the late 60’s and 70’s when funk was pure & raw driven emotion. Live or on stage, The New Mastersounds easily captures a time of splendor, when acts like The Meters and James Brown first shook the stage.
When this event was confirmed for Blue 5 Restaurant in Roanoke, VA, I decided to thumb through the stack of old National Geographic magazines I have in my library, seeking vintage inspiration for the promotional poster. The ads from that time period – even those in black and white – were so vibrant and loud with texture and eye candy. I was in heaven.
After drafting some rough sketches, what began to emerge was a kind of Pam Grier, Super Fly, Spy Movie poster vibe, which I relish. Instead of redrafting finals and scanning the hard copies, I created this piece entirely in Adobe Illustrator utilizing my Wacom Bamboo Graphics Pen Tablet. This was my first official venture with the tablet and I was excited to see how the product would ultimately turn out.
The final result hit the mark with the band as well as the fans. The original pressing of the promotional poster billed Salvador Santana as the opening act. However, Santana’s last minute schedule change put up and coming Chicago power funk act Lubriphonic on the bill instead, the result of which left us with an abundance of spoilage from the initial run. So, as an incentive perk to the ticket buyer, we handed out signed copies of the print at the door.