Virgin

Okay, so I have no YouTube access here in mainland China which has made sharing the latest installment of my world tour all that more difficult… But with V Festival Australia goodness to come, take a sneak peek at the rest of my Global V Pass adventures so far…

www.youtube.com/elleonline

So here’s a televisual blast from the past - well just about this time last year when it all kicked off at Centennial Park in Sydney for the 2008 V Festival. This is what this year’s V Festival has to live up to. Will the glamorous and the good of Sydney come out in force again this year for The Killers, Kaiser Chiefs, Razorlight, Elbow, Snow Patrol, The Kills, M83, Tame Impala and Howling Bells? Sure as anything they will - I’m just jealous I’m not there… as I look through my old YouTube clips of my Aussie adventures in 2008, all I have to comfort me and make me feel part of the party this year is our very own Eleanor Conway. Elle won the Global VPass competition last year for her awesome achievements in blogging for this very site. Check out her stuff: Eleanor Conway. And now she has embarked on her 2009 epic odyssey through V Festivals in every country courtesy of Virgin Holidays. So it’s over to a very lucky Eleanor to take us on her V Festival 2009 trip. If you fancy joining our global blogging community and sharing your adventures in music with us then simply sign up here to contribute. And if you’re at this year’s Australian V Festivals - then sign up, log on and tell us how awesome it was!

From Australia to Canada to the US to the UK - our league of aspiring music journalists have been treated to free tickets to Virgin Festivals in their part of the world in return for sharing their festival adventures with us on music.virgin.com. So a massive big huge thank you to all of our fantastic contributors who have been blogging like… bloggers for the better part of this year in the hope that they will win the awesome grand prize of trips to a Virgin Festival in every participating country throughout 2009, starting with Australia in March.

It’s been a close and hard fought contest and even though it feels a shame that there can only be one winner (you’re all winners in our eyes - ahhhh) we’re delighted to announce that the ulimate winner of the Global VPass is Eleanor Conway. Congratulations Eleanor! You are on your way to Australia, Canada, USA and the UK in 2009 to blog on each Virgin Festival for music.virgin.com.

This girl has had it all going on - video camera in hand, blagging interviews with bands, editing together the most brilliant clips, mobilizing her fans on Facebook and MySpace - is there nothing she can’t do!?

Also of course congratulations to those top contributors who have already won tickets to next year’s Virgin Festivals for their sterling blogging efforts: David Thai, Leopard Lady, Ordinary Boy, Nef West, Livvy, Mae Giglia and Kyria B. Nice work guys - and we’d love you to carry on blogging so we can follow your adventures in music wherever you are.

Don’t worry - the opportunities don’t end there, stay logged on for loads more competitions and exciting stuff on the way from music.virgin.com - the site where the festival season never ends…

The lineups for the Bowtime Bar at the Chelmsford and Stafford V Festivals have been announced. Yet more acts are now set to join the likes of Muse, The Verve, Kings Of Leon, Amy Winehouse, Kaiser Chiefs, Kooks, Lostprophets, Reverend And The Makers, Hot Chip, The Courteeners, Guillemots, Sam Sparro, Calvin Harris, Estelle, Gabriella Cilmi and Noah And The Whale on 16 & 17 August.

Top new acts like Golden Silvers and The Whip are up for live sets while there’ll be DJ sets from Foals and The Maccabees and more.

Playing live will be Golden Silvers, The Whip, Devils Gun, Six Toys, Sam Isaac, Bye Bye Johnny, Micachu, The Maybes?, The Petebox, No Fakin’, Subsource, 6ix Toys, Man Like Me, Black Cherry and Beatlife Orchestra along with DJ sets from The Foals, The Macabees and Streetlife DJs. Alex Metric, Leroy Thornhill, Dom Chung, Yousef, DJ Kid Blue and Jaguar Skills will also be putting in appearances. Lineups differ between Stafford and Chelmsford so be sure to check out vfestival.com for full details.

Fancy VIP tickets to the UK V Festival? Fancy blogging your festival adventures on this very website? Well then - fret no more and enter our frankly astonishing Global VPass competition and all of this and more could be yours…

Check out more Foals photos on chrys’ Flickr photostream.

The lineup for the Sessions Stage at the UK V Festival has been announced. Mick Jones, formerly of The Clash, and his Carbon/Silicon bandmates (including Tony James of Generation X) will now be gracing VFest. Here’s the full list of the Session Stage artists: Carbon/Silicon, Infadels, Sugarush, Beat Company, Bryn Christopher, Attic Lights, Team Waterpolo, One Eskimo, Lost Boys, The Midway State, Julian Velard, The New York Fund, Gary Go, The Dodos, Iglu And Hartley, Das Pop, Sparkadia, The Rushes, Animal Kingdom, The Troubadors, Arno Carstens, The Hazey Janes and Sons Of Albion.

They join the likes of Muse, The Verve, Kings Of Leon, Amy Winehouse, Kaiser Chiefs, Kooks, Lostprophets, Reverend And The Makers, Hot Chip, The Courteeners, Guillemots, Sam Sparro, Gabriella Cilmi and Noah And The Whale who are all gracing the various V Festival stages at Chelmsford and Stafford over the weekend of 16 & 17 August.

So there you have it - the countdown is well and truly on!

Fancy VIP tickets to the UK V Festival? Fancy blogging your festival adventures on this very website? Well then - fret no more and enter our frankly astonishing Global VPass competition and all of this and more could be yours…

For more Carbon/Silicon photos like this, check out aphrodite-in-nyc’s Flickr photostream.

Hollywood Undead have won the coveted Book The Band competition to open up the Baltimore Virgin Mobile Festival in the US on Sunday August 10. Half a million votes were cast and the mysterious masked ones from LA are now set for even bigger things. You the mouse clicking public have given these emo, hip hop and metal fusionists a shot at the big league - out of MySpace and on to the Pimlico Race Course. They join the awesome lineup that includes the Foo Fighters, Bob Dylan, Offspring, Jack Johnson, Stone Temple Pilots, Kanye West, Nine Inch Nails, Iggy & The Stooges, Bloc Party, KT Tunstall, Cat Power, Duffy and Chuck Berry.

Virgin Mobile are doing their darndest to make this festival be as green as the pretty leaves on the beautiful trees this year. They’re running a brilliant carpool scheme where you can win prizes such as VIP upgrades if you partake and they have also teamed up with PickupPal to reduce the number of evil gas churning automobiles spluttering on to the site. How thoroughly lovely.

Fancy VIP tickets to Baltimore Virgin Festival? Fancy a Kyocera Wild Card phone? Some cool festival tshirts? Fancy blogging your festival adventures on this very website? Well then - fret no more and enter our frankly astonishing Global VPass competition and all of this could be yours…

Buy tickets now from virginmobilefestival.com

These two lucky blighters have won the coveted free V Festival VIP weekend with camping tickets in our recent competition: Paul Seeley is now off to the Stafford V Festival and Nicola Ransome will be gracing the Chelmsford V Festival next month. Hurrah for them! If you didn’t win this time, don’t worry coz now there’s an even bigger comp you can try out instead. Not only can you win a set of VIP tickets to Chelmsford for next month’s VFest, but you’ll also be up for a worldwide tour of Virgin Festivals throughout 2009. Blimey. Enter the Global VPass competition now.

This video clip here from Perth signals the end of my whirlwind tour of Australia V Festivals. First came Sydney, then Gold Coast, followed by Melbourne and we wound up in Perth - and Perth rocked, as you can see. There literally were fireworks. Duran Duran put on an amazing show and had everyone singing along (and yes the girls got their la-las out for Girls On Film), the crowd went nuts for CSS and The Presets while the Smashing Pumpkins and Queens Of The Stone Age took Australia by the scruff of its neck and shook it for all it’s worth. But just think - next year this could be you. Not only will we send you to Sydney V Festival, we’ll also send you to Toronto V Festival in Canada, Baltimore in the US and Chelmsford in the UK. And it’s you that’ll be filling these pages on music.virgin.com with all your adventures home and away. Not only do we want to hear all about the Virgin Festivals around the world - we want to hear about the music scene in your neck of the woods all year round. So this is your chance to be the music journalist you always wanted to be. How? Just enter the Global VPass competition and the world of V is yours for the taking…

Looking forward to the UK VFestival in a few weeks? Chelmsford and Stafford here we come! In the meantime - get a feel for how they do VFestival on the other side of the world. Check out this little film here which goes some way to capturing whatever it is that’s in the Perth water that makes the VFestival rock so much in Western Australia. Those guys know how to throw a party (but maybe it’s me - three cans of Bourbon & coke and I’m anyones). And if you fancy a bit of VFestival Australia style next year then all you have to do is enter the Global VPass competition to win an amazing worldwide rock’n'roll tour of VFestivals in Australia, Canada, US and UK. Then it could be you blogging your VFest adventures across the world VIP style for this very site… enter the Global VPass competition now

This is your chance to become a music journalist on this very site! Want VIP tickets to the upcoming VFests in your part of the world? Want to blog your heart out for music? Want to go on a crazy worldwide rock’n'roll tour of Virgin Festivals in 2009? Enter the Global VPass competition now and you could spend the next year writing all about your local music scene for this website and getting travel, accomodation and VIP access to Virgin Festivals in the UK, US, Canada and Australia. So if you want to take part - all you have to do is submit an album or gig review now. Prove to us what a brilliant blogger you could be and a world of VFests is yours for the taking…. enter the Global VPass competition now!

Hello Calgary! Looking forward to your very first Virgin Festival? Well how do you fancy winning VIP tickets, after show party tickets, Motorola mobile handsets, a bag of VFest swag and free tickets to next year’s Virgin Festival!? Of course you do. Not only that but this awesome competition also has the power to set you up with free tickets, travel and accomodation to Virgin Festivals in the UK, US, Canada and Australia throughout 2009 courtesy of Virgin Holidays. Beat that. This charming little video goes some way to explaining the deal. All you have to do is submit a gig or album review to prove that you could blog your music heart out for music.virgin.com and show those other music journalists how it should be done. Yes - you get to blog your Virgin Festival adventures to the whole wide world… fame at last! So be sure to submit your review here and now on the Global VPass page for the chance to lord it like the VIP you deserve to be at next weekend’s Calgary Virgin Festival…