As part of the Rock Band release this holiday season, MTV is rolling trucks around the US promoting the Rock Band atmosphere of the game up on stages. Rock Band, by the way, is a rhythm game by Harmonix, the creators of Guitar Hero. Rock Band has 4 "instruments": Lead Guitar, Bass, Drums and Vocals. Form your own video game Rock Band this christmas season!
Rock Band seems like it'd be pretty fun in the atmosphere they are presented with this stage and crowds. You really get to live out your fantasy as a rock legend with your Guitar Hero skills. However, I don't really see THAT atmosphere transferring to the home what-so-ever. How is playing with 4 people in the same room with a crowd of a couple people compare against playing by yourself with 3 other friends online? It can't compare at all.
Rock Band is a purely social game that can only be played with a dozen people.
Anyways, back on topic.. The Rock Band Tour just kicked off this week, and one of their first destinations was Milwaukee. These tour dates can be found on Rock Band's website: http://rockband.com. The tour dates for Milwaukee are incredibly vague though..
Thu 9/13 - UW-Milwaukee Campus - TBA
Fri 9/14 - TBA
Sat 9/15 - Best Buy - Location TBA
Sun 9/16 - Best Buy - Location TBA
O_o.. Way to organize yourself MTV. With no indication of time or exact place, I decided to make a day of it anyways and got Tony to come with me ^_^. I called up Jin, a former UW-Platteville student, now UW-Milwaukee student, if he had any more information, and also if he wanted to join us.
Jin had no idea what I was talking about, "No.. I haven't seen anything around campus advertising it or anything indicating anything at all." Hmm...
While at work today, he gave me a phone call to say that he knew someone that had spotted the Rock Band truck on campus, back in the Klotche Center parking lot. Huzzah! Information.. It pays to know people all over the place ^_^. With the location in hand, and the road ahead.. Tony and I left Madison around 4.30p and took off to UW-Milwaukee to check out the Rock Band Tour.
Getting to UW-Milwaukee wasn't too bad.. I missed one turn that cost us about 10 minutes, and then finding a parking spot took another 10 minutes. We got to the Klotzche Center to notice the Rock Band Truck!
The truck was all locked up though, and the canvas was pulled down.. They were certainly closed, but it seemed ready to open at some point. I figured they were going to do a night event with fog lamps, lasers.. the whole works! "Well... let's go find something to eat and then come back.. maybe they'll be open then."
Tony and I walked across the Milwaukee campus to find some food. The whole UW-Milwaukee campus is very cramped together, stuck on 3 main blocks in northern Milwaukee.. like 5 minutes north of downtown Milwaukee. It has all the college buildings stuck together on a block, and all the residence halls stuck together on a block.. So much college in such a little space, gave me a really weird feeling.. it didn't really feel like an actual University to me. :shrugs:
Anyways, after dinner, I gave Jin a call to ask him what he was up to and what his plans were.
Apparently, the Rock Band thing was going on all day and actually ended around 4 or 5pm.. So we missed it.
There was so many things wrong with their whole setup in the first place, though. As Jin pointed out to me, There was absolutely no advertising for this events AT ALL. It was basically word of mouth which didn't work. In addition, the Klotzche Center parking was on the far edge of campus behind the building in a parking lot only fit about 20 cars.. as you can see from the photo above.
Also, according to Jin, all the "roadies" MTV hired to help out with setup and, perhaps, advertising, were mainly hired from madison. These people got totally trashed the night before hand, and simply stiffed the morning crew. They didn't even show up, so the few people left had a very rocky morning having the setup everything themselves.
As these failing factors resulted in poor turnout and an overall failure of the event. I suppose if they had their act together they probably would have still been open by the time Tony and I arrived.
Booooooooo.
Well, i'm sure they'll have far better results when setting up for a Best Buy store.. They'll have paid employees to give a hand.. Plus, as Tony mentioned, Best Buy's will probably have their own Rock Band setup close to launch time, so they'll be plenty of chances to play the game with a crowd nearby and not having to purchase the game.