For the first time in its 19 year history, the Moondance Jam rock festival will be broadcast on television. America’s premier television provider, DIRECTV, will air this year’s festival exclusively on The 101 Network. The production company Blaze TV will be filming during the festival this July 15 – 17 and will then produce ten one hour shows featuring artists Sammy Hagar, REO Speedwagon, Buckcherry, Jonny Lang, Hoobastank, Collective Soul, Black Stone Cherry and Pat Travers. Additional artists may also be added from the three day, fifteen band main stage roster. The programs will air as part of the DIRECTV Concert Series and begin airing on The 101 Network late this summer.
“Blaze will have a crew of over 50 creative and technical personnel to record the programs at Moondance Jam using a total of 12 cameras and are employing as much local labor as they can including some camera crew from Minneapolis. The programs will be recorded in High Definition and the audio will be recorded in Surround sound. It is a million dollar production. In addition to the cameras and sound, Blaze will be bringing in $100,000 worth of additional lighting to boost the production value of the shows,” said Blaze TV founder, producer and director, Conor McAnally.
Moondance Jam owners, Bill and Kathy Bieloh, are ecstatic to be able to have their festival filmed and produced by a production company whose philosophy is to shoot from the fan’s perspective.
“Not only are we excited that our festival will be shown on DIRECTV, but it will be produced by a company that shares our philosophy that it is about the fans. Kathy and I started Moondance Jam in 1992 as party for friends and family and now it has grown into Minnesota’s largest rock festival bringing in over 50,000 friends and family through the gates over three days,” says Bill Bieloh. “Over the years we have always done everything we could to keep Moondance Jam a fan friendly rock festival. We still maintain open festival seating for general admission ticket holders so they can get up close to the stage. We also added a restaurant and bar that overlooks the backstage area a few years ago that is open to all fans. Our fans need to have that full concert experience for the amazing artists that put on such great shows every year. So to have Blaze TV come in and recreate that experience for fans that have never been to Moondance is a dream come true for us.”
About DIRECTV’s The 101® Network
The 101 Network, DIRECTV’s exclusive entertainment channel, is a unique television experience that is available to more than 18.5 million DIRECTV subscribers. In 2008, the network changed the television landscape with the unprecedented third season premiere of the Emmy Award-winning series Friday Night Lights and has since become the premiere destination for diverse, quality and critically acclaimed programming including Underbelly, Supreme Court of Comedy and The Dan Patrick Show. Through its partnerships with leading television and film studios, networks and top cable channels, The 101 Network offers viewers the finest in drama and comedy, with daring, innovative series, exclusive “sneak peek” programming and premium cable series un-cut in their original form. The 101 Network showcases concert specials from superstar artists and celebrated music festivals such as Farm Aid, sporting events such as UFC Fighter exposés and the annual DIRECTV Celebrity Beach Bowl; as well as feature films and TV movie specials.
About Blaze TV
Blaze TV is a multi-award winning production company started by Conor McAnally, which has been creating music programming for DIRECTV and other US Broadcasters for the past five years including 65 hours from the SxSW Music Conference in Austin, 30 hours from The Country Concert at Hickory Hills in Ohio and memorable one-offs like Hall & Oates Live at the Troubadour and Legendary Albums Live with Heart. Originally based in London, Blaze is the only UK company in history to win three Consecutive Best Multi-Camera awards from the Royal TV Society. BLAZE is five-time British Academy Award winning TV producers and recipients of 22 major awards for programming excellence. The concert productions they have delivered remain among the highest rated programming in the history of The 101 Network on DIRECTV. The roster of artists Blaze has worked with includes everyone from Madonna to Mariah, U2 to UB40 and Tracy Chapman to Trace Adkins. In all they have shot over 2000 hours of live program for worldwide broadcasters with more than 1700 artists since 1998.
