For the fifth consecutive year, Kia will serve as the Official Vehicle of the Vans Warped Tour, while also serving up a bevy of intimate and interactive music experiences in the Kia Soul Lounge. There, concertgoers will be treated to acoustic sets and autograph sessions with Warped bands, a live DJ, body painting, and a chance to make a little music of their own: The Create Your Own Beat station will allow visitors to mix 15- to 30-second music streams, which will then be patched into a master beat for each tour stop, then uploaded to the Kia Soul Facebook page.
Created in 1995 by Vans—“the original skateboard shoe company”—the annual Warped Tour is one of the country’s top concert series for indie music fans.
And this year, Kia will be running a variety of contests and challenges for Vans fans, who can earn points redeemable for some nifty prizes. Among them: The opportunity to watch concert acts from a shaded VIP riser near the main stages—or from the stages themselves.
And about those stages? They’ve been renamed the Kia Soul Stage and the Kia Rio Stage, and they’ll feature a connecting platform, set in the rigging between the showcases, that will put the Soul in the spotlight, too. (The Rio, Kia’s new 40-mpg subcompact, will be on the sidelines for the tour.)
"Kia is an innovative company that understands the culture of Warped, and their support allows us to bring back two main stages for the 2012 tour," said Kevin Lyman, Vans Warped Tour founder and producer. "We are happy to have Kia Motors onboard with us for a fifth summer.”
