Beer! Music! Bitcoin! At the Budweiser Made in American festival this August, you’ll be able to combine all three.
American beer giant Budweiser has announced it will partner up with Bitcoin wallet CoinBase for its annual live music festival, which is taking place this year in Philadelphia and Los Angeles (simultaneously!) over Labor Day weekend (August 30-31).
The CoinBase/Budweiser partnership will be advertised around the event, some concession stands will accept Bitcoin as payment, and (to up the ante) they’re giving away free Bitcoin to attendees.
I repeat: Free. Bitcoin.
Only $10 worth of free Bitcoin, but still. Attendees must sign up for an online invitation when buying tickets to the festival and register for a CoinBase wallet. Once registration is complete, the wallet will be credited with $10 of Bitcoin.
Budweiser added that the offer is limited (though did not specify HOW limited) and that only US residents are eligible for the deal (though residents of California, Ohio, and Texas inexplicably are not).
Though the deal is probably unlikely to attract new concert-goers, it should make for a more pleasant experience for the people already planning to go – not to mention a spectacular way to spread the word about Bitcoin among the youth of Philly and LA.
Bitcoin promotion aside, the festival itself doesn’t sound too bad either. Made in America, now entering its third year, has boomed into the summer concert market with over 120,000 tickets sold in 2013. This year, Kanye West and Kings of Leon are headlining in Philadelphia, while Imagine Dragons and John Mayer are dominating the stages in LA. Check out the full lineup for both cities here.
For CoinBase, the festival is just a latest effort to promote cryptocurrency awareness using Bitcoin giveaways.
Earlier this month, the wallet service announced it was giving away $10 of free bitcoins to college students, offering the money to students around the world who registered a CoinBase wallet with a valid .edu address.
CoinBase said it had a terrific early response to the deal, with close to 2,000 students signing up from the ten universities with the highest number of participants. The top five schools (as of May 14) were Drexel University (133 participants), Purdue (172), Berkeley (232), University of Texas (290) and the University of Illinois (496).
