Crocs will be the title sponsor of this fall’s Next Step Campus Tour, headlined by Guster. The tour will play college campuses in September and October.
Produced by St. Louis-based 360 Productions, the Next Step tour teams up with the non-profit Reverb to implement environmentally-friendly “greening” initiatives throughout the tour. Reverb, founded in 2004 by Lauren Sullivan and her husband, Guster guitarist Adam Gardner, has a mission of inspiring artists to tour green. Reverb links touring bands and their audiences to environmental issues and organizations via interactive “eco-villages” on site at concerts.
Bill Cottam, sports licensing channel manager of Crocs, Inc., tells Billboard.biz he is “thrilled” to have Guster and Reverb on the Next Step tour.
“Community involvement is important to everyone at Crocs and the greening initiatives that Reverb will be providing [are] going to be not only educational but hopefully life changing for students,” says Cottam. “Bringing an eco-friendly tour to college campuses across the country is a great way of taking care of the communities we are going into.”
Adds 360 president Mike Kociela, “Every bit of what we’re doing on this tour will be green conscious, from the posters to the shirts to the sponsors. We’re not letting anyone on this tour that isn’t pushing green initiatives with their own products and efforts.”
Creative Artists Agency books the tour, and CAA’s Marcie Cardwell is handling sponsorships.
