The third BritBus Tour date in Bristol!

Another great day in Birmingham!

The BritBus Tour hit the road for the first time in the UK on the 13 May in Brighton. After a great day promoting the bands around the city centre with the Bus (performing live on the upper deck), over 300 people turned up to watch the bands perform at Concorde2.

We are pleased to announce the final shortlist for the UK Showcase Tour -  a big congratulations to all those who have been successful!

It has been such a difficult decision to make from such a vast number of awesome applications. For those not selected this time around, please be aware there will be further opportunities for you ahead, including more UK showcase gigs and international touring opportunities. This is by no means the end.

The final list is as follows (we still have one or two more final confirmations to add in the coming days):

Brighton

Jumping Ships                www.myspace.com/jumpingships

The Pretty Suspects        www.myspace.com/theprettysuspects

The Die Vibes                 www.myspace.com/thedievibes

The Perils                       www.myspace.com/theperilsarecoming

Rob the Rich                   www.myspace.com/robtherichtheband

Ice Black Birds                www.myspace.com/iceblackbirdsuk

Birmingham

Page 44                         www.myspace.com/page44

Sick City Club                 www.myspace.com/sickcityclubmusic

The Amateurs                 www.myspace.com/theamateursuk

The Musgraves                www.myspace.com/themusgraves

Strangle Kojak                www.myspace.com/stranglekojakmusic

Bristol

Paper Heroes                     www.myspace.com/paperheroesmusic

The Circus Sands                www.myspace.com/thecircussands

Joe Public                          www.myspace.com/JoePublicRock

The Following Announcement    www.myspace.com/thefollowingannouncement

The Quails                              www.myspace.com/thequailsband

The She Creatures                  www.myspace.com/theshecreatures

Leeds

New Vinyl                            www.myspace.com/newvinyl1

Last Gang                            www.myspace.com/lastganguk

The Vibrants                        www.myspace.com/thevibrants

Mercia Drift                          www.myspace.com/merciadrift

Japanese Fighting Fish           www.myspace.com/japanesefightingfish

The Farrs                             www.myspace.com/farrsmusic

Manchester

Sgt Wolfbanger                   www.myspace.com/sgtwolfbanger

Bulls                                  www.myspace.com/bullsuk

Jessie Rose Trip                  www.myspace.com/thejessierosetrip  

Carjack Mallone                   www.myspace.com/carjackmallone

The Paris Riots                    www.myspace.com/theparisriotsmusic

Newcastle

Radio Dynamics                  www.myspace.com/radiodynamics

This City Romance              www.myspace.com/thiscityromance

The Cheap Suits                 www.myspace.com/thecheapsuitsnewcastle

Jack Summer                      www.myspace.com/jacksummer

The Felons                         www.myspace.com/thefelonsuk

Sheffield

The Find                            www.myspace.com/thefindband

The Aviators                       www.myspace.com/theaviators06

VIDA                                 www.vidamusic.co.uk

Darke Horse                       www.myspace.com/darkehorsemusic

Volcanoes                          www.myspace.com/volcanoes

Liverpool

Polaris                               www.myspace.com/polariscrackstheworld

The Loose Kites                  www.myspace.com/theloosekites

The Vanities                       www.myspace.com/initiationv

10 Reasons to live               www.myspace.com/10reasonstolive

The Time Flies                     www.myspace.com/thetimefliesliverpool

Edinburgh

The Debuts                        www.myspace.com/thedebutsmusic

The Strands                       www.myspace.com/thestrandsonline

Beatnic Prestige                 www.myspace.com/beatnicprestige

The Daze                           www.myspace.com/thesearethedaze

Our Lunar Activities            www.myspace.com/ourlunaractivities

Glasgow

The La Fontaines               www.myspace.com/thelafontainesmusic

Val Verde                         www.myspace.com/thevalverde

John Carson                      www.myspace.com/johncarson923

The Brogues                      www.myspace.com/thebroguesdundee

Black Arrows                     www.myspace.com/blackarrowsmusic

London

The Foxes                         www.myspace.com/thefoxesband

Tempo Shark                     www.myspace.com/temposhark

Elmor                               www.myspace.com/elmormusic

The Dirty Chimes               www.myspace.com/thedirtychimes

Trail                                 www.myspace.com/trailmusic

Prospect Lane                    www.myspace.com/prospectlane

Cardiff

Bensem                             www.myspace.com/bensem

Dreamer                            www.myspace.com/dreamermusic

Panz Agenda                      www.myspace.com/panzagenda

Supergene                         www.myspace.com/supergene

4th Street Traffic                www.myspace.com/4thstreettraffic

Graveyard Johnnys            www.myspace.com/graveyardjohnnys

Hello everyone,

After a long and very detailed review of all our applications for the BritBus Tours, we have finally selected the bands & artists for our UK Showcase Tour. We take this responsibility very seriously and have listened to every single application - which is now well in excess of 3000. It was a HUGE task and has taken several months involving our internal A&R team and Music University partners in 5 countries.

If you have not heard from us by now, then I am afraid you have not made it onto the shortlist for the May & June Showcase tour.  If you have heard from us, please disregard this email.

It is such a difficult decision to make from such a vast number of awesome applications - but please understand there will be further opportunities for you ahead, including more UK showcase gigs and touring opportunities. This is by no means the end.

As we still have a few bands to schedule for the showcases, we will publish the FULL list of shortlisted bands in the coming days once all locked down. However, our ticket page on the website will list the bands currently confirmed.

Just because you have not been selected for this showcase tour, does not mean you will not be for the next. We continually refer back to the entries on the BritBus website to see the comments and reviews on your band entries and listen to any updates on your MySpace page. We will also accept new demos and band information on the UK Showcase Tour.

We have listed all the Showcase dates on the BritBus website and MySpace page - so hope to see as many of you as possible at our gigs. We have also created a list of events on our Facebook page: BritBus Facebook Group

Our touring and record label team will be attending all these gigs are very willing to meet with you and discuss the BritBus Tours , accept new demos and help provide some solid advice on how you can further your music career. We expect considerable demand for this opportunity to meet the team so would appreciate if you could let us know in advance. Our bus will also be visiting your city centre, so please do come along and say hello - we will send out details on this too.

On the night of the gigs, after the bands have played, we will also be running a Guitar Hero stage (our UK sponsors) and you are all welcome to come and play - at then end the tour we will be giving away 2 tickets (courtesy of Virgin Atlantic) to New York for the best player! We will also be giving away Guitar Hero World Tour games, plus the opportunity to win a Gibson Guitar...plus much more!

Tickets are available via the venue websites and our site at: http://www.gigantic.com/britbus

Finally, thanks once again for your support and look forward to meeting you in the coming weeks. Again, if you have not been shortlisted this time around, be patient, there will be more opportunities in the coming months as we add new tours!

We look forward to meeting as many of you as possible on the Showcase Tour.

Regards,
The BritBus Team

The BritBus Tour Update
 
Hello again,

Firstly, sorry for the number of messages over the last few days, but it is important to keep you informed of our progress and website (www.thebritbus.co.uk) developments at this particular time.

After a rather bumpy start I am pleased to see the website is now running well - thanks for all your emails of support. The band search is still a little slow due to the sheer number of entries on the database - but will improve over the coming days.

To be able to make comments on band entries, you will need to register directly on the BritBus website. The link to do this is on the right handside of the main navigation bar. Your supporters will also need to do the same. Remember, we are giving away Guitar Hero World Tour games to the best reviewers...so spread the word! Some bands, such as The Daze and TLi have been hugely active already - well done, its good to see the support!

As explained in the email earlier this week, we are currently finalising the bands that will be selected to perform at our regional Showcase Tour in May and June. Shortlisted bands will be contacted directly by our team over the next week or two and then once all agreed we will publish the full shortlist on the website.

Once again, thank you for your support and we look forward to meeting many of you in the coming weeks & months. If you have any further question or issues, please drop us an email and we will get back to you as soon as possible!

Kind regards,

The BritBus Team 

Hello everyone,
 
We are pleased to announce that we have finally completed the new BritBus website: www.thebritbus.co.uk. 

All your band entries have now been included in the website database - so please go and check it out now. If you do not find your entry, don't panic, there could be two key reasons:

1. You applied after the current deadline for the first round of showcases. If so, your data will be included in the database after the showcase tour.

2. You inputted the wrong MySpace address into your application form.

If it is the second reason, please drop us a line and we will include you in the database. The website is also still being tested, so you may still encounter a few glitches! If you do find any, we would be very grateful if you could let us know.

We review applications on an ongoing basis, so it is important to keep us informed of any developments - you can specifically do this by using the comments section in your website band entry (you need to register with the website and be logged-in to do this). If you add a new song, have an exciting tour or indeed, are splitting up, this is place to tell us. The more information and activity around your entry the better, it demonstrates you are active and a hard working band.

We are also encouraging people who visit the site to review and rate the bands on the database. This provides a very useful way of showing how much support you have or indeed what people think our your band and songs. Please note, this is only one method by which we review applications and not a direct indication of whether you get on a tour - but it does all help with our research and selection, so let all your friends and fans know ASAP!

The UK Showcase Tour will be held in May & June '09 - we have almost finalised the tour dates and venues - which you will also see on the website. These dates are still open to change and tickets are NOT yet on sale. We will let you know as soon as these dates are final and tickets are on-sale. We should also have the BritBus merchandise available very soon - in the meantime we have some fun British gifts from our partners Crest of London.

Finally, we will also be announcing via email the bands shortlisted for the first UK Showcase Tour in May & June - so please make sure you add us to your safe senders list on email.
 
If you have any further questions, please drop us an email and we will get back to you as soon as possible.

Kind regards,

The BritBus Team

Hello everyone,

Hope all is good?

We have almost fixed all our UK showcase dates and will put them on here in the next week or so - would be good to get some feedback when we do, so we don't clash with any major events locally. You feed back will be appreciated.

We have also just created a Twitter account too....it took quite while to get used to it and actually discover the point of it all! But, we are now BIG converts and really enjoy tweeting. Strongly recommend it as a means of communicating to you your fans....give it ago, lots of bands are using it to great effect already!

You can find us at: http://twitter.com/TheBritBusTour

Be in touch soon,

The BritBus Team