January 17, 2008
Presidential Campaigns Driving Local Voter Turnout Using Eventful’s Online Tools
Edwards, Huckabee, Obama and Thompson building crowds in primary states by reaching out to supporters through Eventful
San Diego, Calif. – January 17, 2008 -- With primary season in full swing, Eventful, the leading global events Web site, announced today that several leading presidential candidates are using Eventful’s online tools to achieve participation by supporters in local campaign events in South Carolina and Nevada. Eventful offers contact management tools that enable the campaigns to communicate directly with supporters in targeted local markets who have expressed interest in participating in live events through Eventful’s Demand service.
With polls showing an extremely tight race this Saturday for the Democrats in Nevada and Republicans in South Carolina, the campaigns are tapping the communities they have built on Web sites such as Eventful, MySpace and Facebook, to engage young voters and turn out every last vote. Eventful’s tools have the advantage of enabling the campaigns to target influential, ardent supporters at the local level.
In Nevada, Sen. Barack Obama has more than 500 supporters demanding an appearance in their town, far out-pacing his competition. Edwards and Obama are both using Eventful to send messages to supporters through the site’s online messaging tools, enabling the campaigns to create grass-roots support for upcoming events. Edwards recently built crowds by messaging his supporters to attend his rally in Reno, Nevada on January 16th. In South Carolina, which is also up for grabs according to recent polls, several Republican candidates are using Eventful in unique ways to build crowds. Fred Thompson is using an Eventful calendar to post all of his events for his current bus tour on hIs Web site. Eventful’s calendar tools enable Thompson’s campaign to build awareness of his events on Thompson’s Web site, Eventful.com and at hundreds of sites that publish event calendars from Eventful.
Mike Huckabee has also used Eventful extensively in South Carolina, messaging supporters about upcoming events. “Eventful is a great way to communicate with supporters who have an expressed interest in attending campaign events,” said Chris Maiorana, an Internet consultant for the Huckabee campaign. “We find a very strong response rate from Eventful users as they’ve already ‘Demanded’ to see Mike Huckabee.” While the Nevada and South Carolina races are tight in the polls, Eventful’s data shows Obama and Huckabee in the lead as the most demanded of the leading candidates in the two races.
The Huckabee campaign has made Eventful an integral part of its online strategy for other upcoming states as well, asking supporters to ‘Demand’ Huckabee in their town. Huckabee encouraged supporters on his campaign blog: “I want to see you on the campaign trail. We are using an online tool called Eventful to notify people ahead of time of events. I urge you to sign up today. It is free, easy to use and has been helping us build crowds at events.” After his most recent outreach to supporters for them to use Eventful, Huckabee vaulted to the top of Eventful’s most popular performers, ahead of all other GOP candidates, with more than 12,000 Demanders. Also, Huckabee is now the most ‘Demanded’ major Republican candidate in South Carolina, with more than 80 cities around the state demanding an appearance, compared to 37 cities demanding Sen. John McCain.
Eventful Demand is a free online service that empowers supporters to lobby for political figures to come and speak in their local town. Using Eventful, candidates can track where they are most in Demand, schedule appearances based on this data and also communicate directly with the Demanders via email. Eventful Demand has transformed the way audiences interact with public figures and performers, empowering them to directly influence where events take place. Eventful’s viral tools make it easy for campaigns and supporters to spread the word by including links and widgets in blogs, MySpace pages, Facebook groups and other social networking sites.
“It’s rewarding to see the presidential candidates achieving voter turnout by using Eventful,” said Jordan Glazier, CEO at Eventful. “As the primaries unfold we’re seeing direct results from the candidates using online services like Eventful to secure participation by young voters.”
About Eventful Inc.
San Diego based Eventful, Inc., operates Eventful.com, the leading events Web site, which enables its community of users to discover, promote, share and create events throughout the world. Eventful users select from nearly 4 million events taking place in local markets throughout the world, from concerts and sports to singles events and political rallies. Eventful’s Demand service enables users to influence where their favorite performers and candidates appear by creating viral grass-roots campaigns to “Demand” them in their town.
www.eventful.com
www.eventful.com/politics
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CONTACT:
Sharon Howell
LEWIS PR
415 992 4400
eventful@lewispr.com
Posted by brian at January 17, 2008 08:00 AM