Electronic Arts and a plethora of musical partners launch a music talent search in Australia and New Zealand.
Electronic Arts announced the start of “EA Amplify Artist Search,” a talent search for emerging bands from the Asia Pacific region. Partners collaborating with EA as partners are music label EMI, Australian Radio Network’s The Edge96ONE, Gibson, Microsoft and Motorola. The competition is open to residents of Australia and New Zealand, and is now accepting entries at EA Amplify.
EA Amplify Artist Search is open to any unsigned bands or artists from the Asia Pacific region who are willing to showcase their music and profile on the EA Amplify website and compete for the Regional Grand Prize. Winners of the Regional Grand Prize will have a chance to sign a record deal with popular record label EMI and have their tracks featured in one of EA’s upcoming titles. Country Finalists from each participating country will receive prizes provided by Artist Search partners, including Epiphone Les Paul custom guitars from Gibson, Xbox 360 consoles from Microsoft and MOTOROKR E2 mobile phones from Motorola. Edge96ONE FM will be the exclusive radio provider for the entrants.
Jon Niermann, President of EA Asia Publishing, stated, “Making our games culturally relevant to each country through inclusion of local music and celebrities has been a key focus for EA in Asia over the past year -and EA Amplify Artist Search takes this initiative a step further. We hope to generate a lot of excitement for this regional competition among music and videogame communities alike.”
Steve Schnur, worldwide executive of music and marketing for EA, discussed the importance of signing new musical groups. “Many of the biggest bands around the world have been first discovered through EA videogames, and now we are expanding the opportunity to unsigned bands with EA Amplify Artist Search. There are amazingly inspirational musical talents in the Asia Pacific, and I look very forward to meeting them through this contest.”
“At EMI Music Australia we have always been incredibly proud of our local artist roster. By partnering with EA for the EA Amplify Artist Search we hope we can discover, market and promote the next generation of exciting Australian talent. And as the global music industry continues to evolve and re-invent itself, this is an initiative we totally embrace,” added John O’Donnell, Managing Director at EMI Music Australia.
