BlueHaze

The $2.5B merger of Live Nation and Ticketmaster into Live Nation Entertainment is actually a good thing for consumers and a good thing for the industry. In short, consumers will benefit as average ticket prices will come down for three reasons: (1) more competition in ticketing, (2) more incentive to fill Live Nation tours and venues, and (3) greater scrutiny from artists, fans and government. Let’s take them one by one:

Conventional wisdom is the entertainment business is recession-proof. If you believe that, you probably believe Sarah Palin is our country's foremost energy expert.

The movie business was hurt by the last recession. But at least their prices are cheap. Ours are stratospheric.

We've got high prices, a dearth of superstar talent and a financial meltdown. Do you really think the concert business is going to emerge unscathed?

Blue Haze’s iPhone Concerts App is a tremendous success with over 50,000 downloads worldwide in its first 3 weeks.  The app allows you to share and view concert photos in real time from around the world.  Now able to receive local upcoming concert listings, the iPhone concerts app is a must have for live music fans. Click here to download the concerts app for free.

Apparently resulting from a “security breach”, a crazed concertgoer tackled Oasis’ Noel Gallagher during the song “What’s the Story, Morning Glory” at their recent V-Fest performance. The band’s crew abruptly tackled the disgruntled fan before he could get to the singer. Not much of a champagne supernova for Oasis.  Check out the video here.

Congratulations to the winner of our Virgin Festival Ticket Contest, Pema Hegan. Pema has won two (2) complimentary 2-day passes to Virgin Festival taking place Sept. 6-7 at the Toronto Island Park. With headliners Foo Fighters and Oasis set to entertain the masses, it’s sure to be a concert for the ages. Enjoy the show Pema!

BlueHaze is officially live. Here's our press release and check out our story on TechCrunch.

Sometimes live music gives us more than we bargained for, but who doesn’t love to see their favorite star falter once in a while? Whether it be Fergie showing us her not-so-GLAMOROUS side or silly lip synch scandals, live music is entertaining! I present you with the Top 10 Most Embarrassing Concert Moments.

#10 - William Hung: She Bangs   » watch video
_{Anyone who went to this concert needs to seek professional help...}

Our second and third official partnerships: Virgin Mobile Festival (Calgary) and Virgin Mobile Festival (Toronto). Thanks to Brandi and Andrew. Awesome line ups as always. I'm sure they'll both be awesome shows!

Our first official partnership. Check out The Rogers Picnic coming to Toronto this July. Thanks to Neil and Phil. Great line up including City and Colour, Cat Power, Tokyo Police Club, Vampire Weekend, Chromeo, Animal Collective, Dizzee Rascal, Born Ruffians, and The Carps.

Nothing beats seeing a live show. The energy of the crowd, feeding the band, feeding back to the crowd. The smell of the club, the deaf ringing in your ears when you leave, the high that you leave with. Nothing beats it.

But are we getting close to replicating that experience? I saw the U2 3D movie tonight. And it's incredible. In some ways, it's even better than the live experience. You can see the beads of sweat on Bono's forehead and the writing on the picks on The Edge's guitar stand. You're better than front row - you're on the stage!

I recently read that you should never announce your public launch to the world on your own blog. Great advice. So for our current private beta members, thanks for your support and feedback. It's been really helpful. So as a notice to our members, we're no longer behind closed doors and you can now start inviting friends to join BlueHaze. PR campaigns and more coming soon.

We heard you loud and clear. You want to buy tickets from the site. Makes perfect sense. So we've gone out and struck deals with Ticketmaster, StubHub and TicketsNow so you can buy tickets easily. Now you have no excuse - go see lots of shows.

We're very, very happy to announce that BlueHaze is now in private beta. If you'd like to check it out, email us and we'll send you an invite. Goal of our private beta is to hammer away at the code, get feedback on the relevancy of our features, and find out how you like the user experience. Did we fulfill our promise? Of course, it's only a start... but hopefully it's a good one. Let us know.

Rounding out our development team is Jocelyn, a mad, mad designer from ninjagirl, and Amanuel, from parts unknown and Otavo. Very excited to have you guys as part of the team.

Today we closed our first round of seed financing. Thank you to our investors for your support.

Welcome to our first full-time developer, Andre. I promised him lots of free concert tickets. So someone hook me up!

The first full-time team member of BlueHaze officially started today. His name is Eric, he's my brother, and he's also a co-founder. Also helping out is Shawn and Craig. Time to get cranking.

The paperwork is done. It's official. Today BlueHaze is born.

BlueHaze: The Idea
From before you even think about going to see a concert until well after the show's finished, BlueHaze will be there to help make the concert experience even better. Whether online or on your phone,

BlueHaze will:

• Make it easier to find local concerts