The Power of Twitter and Facebook via Dave Chappelle

I was having a conversation last night over a delicious denver omelet crepe about promotions. We were talking about throwing a party with Andy Moor and how fast we need to get fliers printed for the event. (We are not going to book him.) We came to realize that the old school way of putting fliers in peoples hands is just not the way to promote anymore. Social networking through Facebook, Twitter, MySpace and all the other giants is what makes today so exciting and unique when it comes to gathering people and showing your event or product to thousands. A simple email list, tweet or status update can attract more people than one really realizes, to show this in a live setting Dave Chappelle broadcasted through Facebook and Twitter that he was going to do a show at Pioneer Square… the outcome was amazing. He thought that only a few hundred people were going to show but because of the wild fire that struck through the social networks, thousands ended up showing.

Dave Chappelle’s live performance at Pioneer Square was not a PR move, he was not accompanied by security guards, he did not have producers all around him calling shots, it was native, naked, true raw comedy by the artist to the people. Just to rewind incase you dont know, Dave Chappelle started out with a movie that is still famous, “Half Baked” where he stars as a stoner, finds a girl, his best friend gets locked up in jail for killing a horse and they raise money through selling medical marijuana. Its a true must see movie. Later on in life he got his own show, “The Chappelle Show” featured exclusively on Comedy Central. A show where he did some gut busting comedy through real life events or just imitating some of the latest news… also a must watch.

Now that you know a little about him you should tune into this video clip of his over 2 hour long performance. I cant express enough how pure and raw something like this is. He got there at about 12:53am, walked up to the little stage they have for summer events at Pioneer Square, turn on his first time guitar player lunchbox size amp that was only heard by the first few rows of people and cast off on his comedic trip. Since we all know how much cops love to harass people and ruin all the fun, they didnt. He even addressed it by saying, “Portland Police were kind enough not to arrest me”.

Directly from Oregonlive.com here is how the wild fire event of this performance escalated to being over 4000 people strong!

// begin oregonlive.com //

Local35 clothing store owner Justin Machus wasn’t at his Hawthorne Avenue boutique at 4:58 p.m. when he logged onto Facebook with his phone to update his status to reflect that Chappelle was shopping in the store, taking advantage of “double rewards” day for frequent shoppers.

“David Chapelle in my store an I’m not there!!!!,” he wrote.

Then Machus, who shifts frequently between updating Facebook and posting short comments on Twitter, turned to Twitter. “Dave Chappelle has a Local35 rewards card!… I wasn’t here… “

Moments later, a friend replied to his Facebook status change: “what?? i heard about a secret show tonight??”

Machus responded 10 minutes after his original post. “Yeah! Free standup, Midnight tonight at Pioneer Place! he was on his way to buy an amp for the show! He bought a few things!”

For good measure, Machus repeated the news on his Local35 Twitter page. “Free Dave Chappelle standup at midnight tonight at Pioneer Square!!!”

Two hours later, one of his 334 followers, Scott Serchen of San Rafael, Calif., posting as “hiveprojects,” responded: “forrealz?”

Machus quickly replied: “It was from his mouth. He said to spread the word.”

Then Machus added, “This may be getting out of hand.”

A few minutes later, at 7:17 p.m., Machus was worried.

“This is out of hand. Poop.”

Later still, dressed in a white shirt and carrying purple Master Piece cycle bag into the crowded Pioneer Courthouse Square, he updated Facebook again: “this is getting crazy.”

He turned to Twitter: “Dave is here, massive crowd judgement fail. no sound system other than a battery powered Vox amp.”

Then after midnight, back to Facebook: “Dave is seeking out a better soundsysten. Didn’t expect this crowd.”

He returned to Twitter: “This might get ugly. Bad energy brewing.”

An hour later: “Easily, one of the strangest events in my Portland history. Blame it on me and other Twitter people?Hope not.”

Shortly after 4 a.m., Machus wrapped up the night with this post: “that was a bizarre evening with Chapelle. Blame it on Twitter? Quite the social networking experiment.”

// end oregonlive.com //

An event this strong is something we all may dream of and in the not distant past, it took months of planning and promotions to make it happen but in the way of web three (we are WAY past web 2.0) social marketing is the future for event marketing and social interaction. The better bonus to this is that we can save some trees and with all the print that would have had to happen to make something like this be true.

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