Everfest Online Launches to Celebrate Live "Offline" Events

Just in time for Coachella and the summer festival season, Everfest, a new digital startup founded last October with very big tangible analog ambitions, today announced the close of its $1.5 million angel round and official launch of what it calls "the world's most comprehensive online festival community" (as in live music, arts, food festivals -- essentially anything around which you can organize an offline/physical "real" experiential festival event).  Investors include Bob Kagle of BenchMark Capital and several execs from Google.

I have come to know this company and its high-octane co-founder, co-CEO and "Chief Explorer" Paul Cross well (Paul's co-founders are Jay Manickam (co-founder of uShip) and Brad Dixon (EVP of uShip).  And, I like the company's vision so much that I joined as an Advisor, together with Kagle, Sunil Bhatt (CEO of Reservations.com and former GM of Expedia), digital media maven Ken Hertz, author Peter Hirschberg and Joe Alcorta of Wilson (with whom I have done business in the past when CEO of SightSpeed (later acquired by Logitech)). 

While Everfest is a directory of sorts for the festival community -- a one-stop shop of "where to go and what to do" in a community near you -- it aims much higher.  Its ultimate vision is "to create a full festival community of revelers, festival organizers and brands" and to build "applications that connect and thrill each of these groups."  And, other big names are watching.  TechCrunch -- in today's article titled "Do Something Epic With Everfest's Festival Finder" -- just featured Everfest and concluded that Paul and his team have the potential to "become an essential tool for the adventurous."

I actually think the opportunity is MUCH bigger than that.  It is to be the home for festival goers -- and the overall festival and "experience" lifestyle -- period.   That lifestyle is something near and dear to my family -- both major family vacations this year are major music festivals ("Live Earth" in Paris in June, and "Outside Lands" in San Francisco in August).  That's why I signed up to be an Advisor to Paul and the company.

As several of my long-time readers know, one of my favorite recurring themes is the online/virtual world fueling the proliferation of (and need for) real, authentic and tangible offline/physical experiences.  In fact, I wrote about this specifically in the live event/festival context for Wired in an article titled "Media's Online-Offline Nexus: Connecting Virtual, Physical Worlds."  I further expanded this in my later piece for Billboard titled, "Digital Tech, Helping Monetize and Expand the Live Music Experience."

Well, Everfest hopes to be that connective tissue.  

And, it's absolutely the right time for this festival experience to launch.