Here, in our eyes, is a very small list of things we have done in 2012. Some remember it all, and those of you that are new will get a little history about us. We hope you enjoy! Without you, we wouldn’t be doing any of this! You, and our bands make this fun for us!
Feb 6, 2012 – We went live with a website that promotes country music in the state of Minnesota. From local bands to National acts, we do our best to support them all!
Local Bands – Since Feb 6, we have added about 25 local bands to the website for FREE. Each band has their own page on our site, with details and booking information about each of them. We haven’t been able to make it out to see a live show for each band, but we will be doing our best to do that in 2013. What you may not know, is many venues have contacted us directly to ask about bands before booking them. They seek recommendations, and use our site to select bands to play at their venue or festival. With that said, being on our site does help the bands more than the public, or the bands may even know. This is what makes it all worthwhile for us, and keeps us doing what we do.
Website Re-Design – A few months into this project, we realized people really loved what we were doing for the country music scene in the state of Minnesota. We took our homemade website, and had it completely re-designed. We added a nice new logo, much more content on the site, and over all, made it a much more user friendly website. Those of you who saw it in it’s early days will know, it has came a long way from when we first started!
Event Pages – Many of you use, or have noticed we have two separate event pages on the website. One for the local bands, which on their own time keep updated to keep you informed of where they are playing. We also have a National events page, which we do our best to keep up with. On their we list major shows we know of all over the state of Minnesota.
CD Release Parties – A few of our local bands have had CD release parties this year. We’ve had the pleasure of promoting album releases for Lost Highway, Shane Martin, and The Last Ride. We look forward to promoting even more in 2013, as many bands have been working on more original tunes throughout the year.
Prizes – We have given out literally hundreds of prizes from t-shirts, CD’s, DVD’s, autographed CD inserts, concert tickets, guest list passes to see our local bands, and MORE! The list will continue into 2013, all you have to do is click here to check out what we have to offer.
Concert Reviews/ Interviews – Thanks to one of our best, Ryan Gueningsman for all of the work he has done this year. With a limited amount of time, he was able to interview several of our listed bands, and review a select few concerts and festivals. All of these can be located throughout the website. We also lined up a special interview with Dustin Lynch prior to his performance at Ramble Jam this year. We are working on freeing up more time to be able to get out and do many more reviews and interviews in 2013. Stay tuned….
Videos – We had three very nice videos sent to us this year. Thanks to Edens Edge, J.T Hodges, and Scotty McCreery for sending them our way! You can check them out on YouTube by clicking here. Each one is a special thank you to YOU, the fans for supporting MinnesotaCountry.com.
Merchandise – We had t-shirts and hooded sweatshirts designed this year as well! We are currently working on setting up our online store, but in the meantime if you’re interested in purchasing any, please email us at info@minnesotacountry.com for all of the details.
Photography – We do not use a specific photographer when we go to shows, festivals, etc. However we have worked very closely with the following photography companies on more than one occasion. Please click each name to check out the work they have done: Photography By Decker , Xpressive Images By Jamie, and Adam’s Travel Photography. They all do fabulous work, and have allowed us to use their images when we need them. Best of all, none of them just shoot concerts, they shoot everything from weddings, to wildlife, and do an excellent job with all of it and everything in between.
Overview – We know there are many things we didn’t include in the above writing, but we tried to keep it short. We would like to thank you all for your support, as it has been a great year! If we thanked each person, band, record label, radio station, management company, booking company, and venue we have worked with, it would take you all of 2013 to finish reading the list. We appreciate everyone’s support in helping us grow, and the bottom line is we are all country music fans and we support the music and it’s bands as much as we can. We wish you all the best in 2013, and look forward to seeing you in person at shows, concerts, and festivals, as well as seeing you on the website, Facebook, and Twitter as well.
What to expect in 2013 – In 2013, we will be doing more of everything listed above! You can look forward to seeing us at more shows, winning more prizes, more online content, and an overall better experience on MinnesotaCountry.com. Our online store will be set up soon, and we are also looking into making our website mobile friendly. All of this takes time, but it will all be looking and running great in the very near future.