Escape the Fate/Buzznet Digital Experiment an Unprecedented Success
"I Thought it Might Take a Week, but it Took Less than 36 Hours"

Unexpected, gratifying and momentarily frustrating to some, the promotion that asked fans to gather 50,000 people on Escape the Fate's Buzznet page had such an overwhelming response in its final minutes, it managed to crash the big servers of the social networking giant that was hosting the promotion. While it may have only been for 15 minutes, that was a long 15 minutes to fans who had been parked on the page for more than a day, waiting to hear a new song from their favorite band.

Launched on September 2nd, the digital social experiment challenged Escape the Fate's core fans to cooperate with one another by gathering 50,000 people on the band's Buzznet page. When that number was reached, it would "unlock" a long awaited, brand-new song from the band's upcoming sophomore release This War Is Ours, out October 21 on Epitaph Records. Over the next 30 hours, determined fans posted bulletins on other social networking sites, made desperate pleas on YouTube and commandeered their parents' and sibling' computers and managed to gather their legions so quickly everyone was taken by surprise.

"I thought the promotion might run for a week or 10 days as word got out," says Jason Fisher, Epitaph's Director of New Media and the creator of the project. "I figured kids would log on after school and we'd see an increase every afternoon. I never expected them to unlock the song in a day and a half. Originally, I thought we could set the number of people at 25,000 and that would be a challenge."

In the 30 hours the Escape the Fate promotion ran, it had nearly a million page views, generated 16,000+ comments and gathered well over 50,000 fans. The ensuing buzz caused the band to jump up the music charts on Myspace, landing them in the rarified Top 20.

Lesson learned? Never underestimate the determination of an Escape the Fate fan. "I thought it might take a week," Fisher concludes, "but it took less than 36 hours."

"The Flood," the first single from Escape the Fate's forthcoming This War Is Ours, can be heard here, compliments of 50,000 ETF fans.