In Bram Stoker’s 1897 traditional novel Dracula, the titular rely consumes the blood of those that cross his path, utilizing the substance to achieve horrible power and energy.
UNTOLD Competition, a dance music competition that’s occurred in Romania’s Transylvania area yearly since 2015, has used this regional vampire folklore to additionally achieve energy and provides power, however on this case for an excellent trigger.
With its Blood Community program, UNTOLD has collected 1000’s of gallons of blood during the last eight years, with donations going to medical facilities all through Romania. In trade for his or her blood, donors obtain a complimentary day go for the competition, the eighth iteration of which befell this previous weekend (August 3-6), internet hosting roughly 420,000 attendees. The lineup featured greater than 200 genre-spanning dance artists together with Eric Prydz, David Guetta, Bebe Rexha, Amelie Lens and Story Of Us, together with headliners together with Armin van Buuren and Think about Dragons.
“We thought, ‘What if we make a marketing campaign based mostly on the concept vampires from Transylvania normally suck blood — however on this case they don’t suck blood, however [rather] donate it?’” UNTOLD co-founder Edy Chereji tells Billboard.
From this straightforward, sanguine premise, UNTOLD Competition launched their blood drive marketing campaign in tandem with 2015’s debut competition. Initially referred to as Pay with Blood, this Yr One marketing campaign received 1,500 Romanians to donate blood at transfusion facilities across the jap European nation, which borders Hungary, Serbia and Ukraine. The mountainous, forested Transylvania area is within the coronary heart of Romania, with UNTOLD happening on the Cluj Enviornment within the area’s metropolis metropolis of Cluj-Napoca.
Past serving to individuals, the marketing campaign helped get the phrase out in regards to the occasion, which upon its launch turned Romania’s largest digital music competition. It stays one of many solely dance music festivals within the higher area, drawing followers from all through Romania, together with Bulgaria, Moldavia, Ukraine, Albania and Greece. In 2016, UNTOLD’s dad or mum firm, UNTOLD Universe, launched a second occasion, Neversea, which takes place within the Romanian seaside city of Constanța. A winter occasion, Massif, takes place within the ski city of Poiana Brasov, and UNTOL will launch one other dance competition in Dubai subsequent February.
However regardless of these nationwide and worldwide strikes, Blood Community stays fairly native. In its second 12 months, Blood Community donors had been capable of give blood at each transfusion facilities and through a cellular donation middle that traveled across the nation and which has since grow to be an ordinary side of the marketing campaign. Donors can present as much as this donation middle on wheels, give their blood and instantly obtain a free day go for the fest.
Forward of this 12 months’s UNTOLD, the caravan touched down in 12 Romanian cities between Could and June. Throughout this era, greater than 5,000 donors gave greater than 2,200 liters (roughly 580 gallons) of blood, with 1000’s of gallons additionally collected over earlier years. Blood Community companions with medical doctors from Regina Maria Personal Healthcare to coordinate these blood drives, with Regina Maria additionally receiving the collected blood.
Whereas many dance occasions have charitable elements, arguably few have the speedy results of Blood Community, which isn’t only a competition advertising and marketing software however a supplier of life-saving blood in a rustic the place it’s acutely wanted. “Sadly, the donation in Romania is low, round 2% of Romanians donate blood,” says Ania Vladescu, Strategic Partnerships Supervisor at Romania’s Regina Maria Personal Healthcare. “The Blood Community marketing campaign created by UNTOLD is superb, needed and welcomed — it helps rather a lot.”
Vladescu estimates that during the last eight years, the marketing campaign has gathered greater than 37,000 donors, whose blood has helped and saved the lives of greater than 100,000 individuals. She provides that blood donated by one individual can save three lives.
“Anybody else who would have performed such a marketing campaign, wherever on the earth, wouldn’t have had the identical set off of authenticity as UNTOLD, being a competition within the coronary heart of Transylvania, the so-called land of Dracula,” Vladescu provides. “The vampire who usually sucks blood, this time invitations you to donate blood to assist individuals who undergo and save their lives.”
