The winning band will also have one of their tracks remixed by UNKLE's Aidan Lavelle, and receive four VIP tickets to the new ZooThousand festival taking place in July amongst the beautiful natural surroundings of Port Lympne Wild Animal Park near Ashford, Kent. This year's Unsigned Heroes runners-up will have opportunities to showcase their live talents before festival audiences too: the second-prize winners will get to play at the fifth JerseyLive festival in September, whilst the bronze medalists will appear live at ZooThousand in Kent. All three winning bands will become AKG endorsees and receive a complete set of live microphones for use on stage, complete with wireless receivers and transmitters.
The 2007 AKG Unsigned Heroes competition was a huge success, with 2500 entrants in nearly 900 bands. The winners, London's The Standards, who carried the day after an emotionally tense three-band talent shootout at Camden's famous venue KOKO in June, played at the 2007 Isle of Wight Festival, and walked away with a stage-load of Harman equipment.
The competition will be organised slightly differently this year. As in 2007, bands will enter their music via the Unsigned Heroes web site at www.unsignedheroes.co.uk, and all entrants to the competition will receive discount vouchers for AKG C5 and D5 stage microphones, irrespective of whether their bands are selected to play. (The very first 10 entrants to enter will each additionally receive a free pair of tickets to the ZooThousand festival). However, this year the best three bands to enter each month will be picked to play live at the Comedy Café in Shoreditch, London at monthly face-offs in February, March, April and May. The winning bands from each of these four heats, plus four other runners-up, will then be put to the web-based public vote in June, the winners going straight on to play on the Strummerville stage at Glastonbury a few days later.
Launching the 2008 competition, Amanda Chester, marketing manager at Harman Pro UK, commented, "Last year's competition was a great reminder of how much fantastic musical talent there is in Britain and Ireland; we knew we could run another competition this year and shine a spotlight on some more great unheard music. This year's competition is for over 18s only, but we will be running Unsigned Heroes mini-competitions later this year, rather like the recent events at the Music Live festival in November. "(Jim Evans)
