PickupPal Blog

We are proud to announce that Van’s Warped Tour has chosen to team up with PickupPal to get punk fans to all of their 46 festival dates. This is a huge honour for me personally because I was and still am a fan of punk music.

It started with Patti Smith and a bit of Iggy Pop then moved onto the Clash, Sex Pistols, Dead Kennedy’s and to round out to Black Flag, but that is old punk - some would say “Classic Punk”. I do have to qualify and say I was not as hard core as others because I could not really commit - I think it had to do with the fact that I had friends who were really committed and I just could not go as hard as they did. Out of all my “Punk Loving” friends from High School one still lives the Punk lifestyle, Shane Smith, (Vice Magazine and TV Go to 2:15 in the clip it is pretty funny).

In any event with such acts as: Norma Jean, All American Rejects, and Matisyahu - and tons of indie punk bands this years lineup is definitely awesome! For more info you can check it out on Van’s World Tour website.

Cheers - Eric

Well in the immortal words of Otis Redding and covered ohh so well by the Black Crowes:

“Baby here I am
I’m the man on the scene
I can give you what you want
But you gotta come home with me”

[NOTE: It was on this tour when I first saw the Black Crowes - Awesome band live! I cannot wait to see them in July at Bluesfest]

The Ottawa Bluesfest has team up with PickupPal providing fans an excellent way to double up and cut down - all part of our Rock n Roll Rideshare initiative. As a loyal fan of the Cisco Ottawa Bluesfest year after year this is quite the pleasure to team up with such a prestigious festival. If you are going to Bluesfest sign up to PickupPal from the Ottawa Bluesfest Site and bring someone with you or find a ride to the various shows.

This years line up is massive - here is a sampling:
James Taylor; Steely Dan; The Tragically Hip; Feist; Wyclef Jean; The Black Crowes; Fergie; Widespread Panic; Brian Wilson; Great Big Sea; Boz Scaggs; Three Days Grace; Primus; Zappa Plays Zappa; Taj Mahal; Donna Summer; Matthew Good and His Band; Don McLean; Keb’ Mo’; Theory of a Dead Man; Blind Boys of Alabama; Joan Armatrading; Jakob Dylan; Dr. John; Canned Heat; Corb Lund, Metric; The Wailers; Johnny Winter; Bettye LaVette; Sam Roberts Band; Martha Wainwright; Jose Gonzalez; The Hammerheads; Sonny Landreth; Back Door Slam; Brothers Chaffey; Theory of a Dead Man; Billy Joe Green, Mumbo Jumbo Voodoo Combo; Tokyo Police Club; Three Days Grace

And special note - our very own Brothers Chaffey are performing on Friday, July 11 at 6:00 pm on the Rogers Stage - you have to check them out! (If you have watched the PickupPal Video - you may have noticed a wicked little ditty - custom written for us by the Brothers Chaffey).

Well it has been really hard to keep this under my hat for so long but I can now announce that we have formally partnered with Reverb and The Dave Matthews Band.

From the Dave Matthews Band Website:

“DMB and Reverb are further expanding the greening efforts for the summer tour with a special partnership they have created with PickupPal. The Eco-Rideshare program is the first of its kind in the music tour industry and will help drivers and riders carpool to shows, thus helping concertgoers reduce their carbon footprint. PickupPal has generously agreed to waive their driver commission for DMB fans traveling to shows this summer. To learn more about the program, register with PickupPal (free) and enter shows that you may be driving to or need a ride to, please click here. DMB concertgoers who participate will also be eligible to win some cool prizes provided by Dave Matthews Band.” (Source).

We have been working closely with Reverb for several months now and we are so excited about this partnership. The Dave Matthews Band have been true pioneers in the field of raising awareness and walking the eco-walk by going the extra mile to make their tours as eco-friendly as possible. We look forward to participating at the various eco-villages that travel with the tour and I hope to see some of you there.

Cheers - Eric

It is really awesome the way in which festival and concert organizers have come on board with our PickupPal Eco-Rideshare program. Getting fans to festivals by using PickupPal is one of the best ways they can reduce their carbon footprint. Two new ones that launched today come from the UK and they are our first major festivals in the UK. NASS 2008 (www.nassfest.com) and Rip Curl Boardmasters 2008 (www.ripcurlboardmasters.com) - Skateboarding, BMX, Inline Skating, Motocross, Surfing, Hard driving bands - lots and lots of energy. Just listening to the intro music on their websites makes it very hard not to let the mind wander.

In other concert news, we are deep in planning mode right now - there are a few tours we will be on the road with and we will be at both the Calgary and Toronto Virgin Festival Canada 2008 by Virgin Mobile. We call it the “Rock n Roll Rideshare” and we have come up with some cool ideas to get people to come by our booth at the EcoVillage. I can’t get into details right now - however we will be giving away some amazing prizes for those that join in.

Also stayed tuned - this week we are launching our biggest partner tour and I cannot wait to spread the good word!

Cheers - Eric

When we were in the early planning stages of PickupPal we always had the idea of having member profiles and encouraging members to post their photo. Having your photo along with your profile is actually way more important than you think. I have some statistics to back this up - of the Drivers that get accepted offers, 94% post their photos. The number of Drivers within PickupPal that have photos is currently at 41% and the number of Passengers that have photos is at 36%. So I am not a math wizard but there is a high correlation between having your photo as a Driver and having your offer accepted. It stands to reason - if you are going to accept a ride from someone you want to know what they look like first.

So this brings me to another part of this post which is that when we first designed PickupPal we thought - “Ohh we better have some way of reviewing the photos to make sure there are no offensive ones” - so we built an administration tool to do just that. To be honest before we launched we thought this might be a big issue to deal with so we built and administration tool to review all the profile pictures that are posted. Well having done it for a few months now I can truthfully say that there are very very few questionable photos. The funny thing is that I love reviewing them and approving them but so too does Suesan - our fanatical Customer Support Lead and Community Builder Super Star here at PickupPal. So I log in early in the morning to review the ones that came in over night before she gets to them - she however does it throughout the day so she sees more of you than I do. In any event - each one of them I think are great! When you are helping to build a great community like PickupPal it is such a privilege to see who is joining - as if to say welcome. I know that probably sounds really crazy but I am serious it is great to see you as you join in.

So please post your profile picture - it greatly improves your chances of getting offers and having your offers accepted, also Suesan and I really like meeting you.

Cheers - Eric

O.K. so this has been a staggering week - on both ends of the week we were able to get some great media coverage. First it was front page of the Business Section, on Tuesday John was on a Talk Radio station for an interview and today it was a five minute segment on the morning news. The issue that has been getting us all this attention - Rising Gas Prices! Cost and the environment are two huge issues with transportation these days and we deal with both. In any event, enough of me going on about PickupPal - of course I am biased - however the one thing that I will say is that John did an awesome job on air today - live and broadcasting all across Ontario.

(NOTE: this is a super low quality version because we video grabbed it ourselves. GlobalTV is getting us a much better copy and when we get it I will put it up)

As a side note - when I asked John this morning if he was nervous he said he wasn’t once he got into the studio. As he said “once you are there sitting in the chair you don’t really have too many options you just have to go for it - it is not like you can get up and run out the door!”. Well John we are all proud of you buddy.

Cheers -Eric

O.K. so now we have some serious perks about being with PickupPal and teaming up with awesome festivals like the Virgin Festivals - Virgin Mobile Canada.

Since we are providing Ridesharing to all of their festivals across Canada, we just had to have a booth at the eco-village at the festival. I was chosen to go beause I was the first and the loudest to yell “I’M IN!!!” looks like I am going see the Tragically Hip, Stone Temple Pilots, John Mayer, Three Days Grace and a whole host of other bands! The details need to get worked out - but suffice to say we are hitting the road!

NOTE: Little known fact is that I am PickupPal’s defacto mucho supremo concert lover! So here is the deal - we are going to have a booth - if you are in Calgary, Vancouver or Toronto come by and see us - we want to give away stuff at the booth - and there just might be more surprises in Calgary if I can convince Scott Weiland to swing by and sign some stuff - perhaps scrawl “Interstate Love Song” across a PickupPal T-Shirt!

I gotta add this - I have not seen STP since they opened for the Stones in 08-19-94 on the Vodoo Lounge tour - I can’t believe they are back together again - check this out STP Live.

Cheers - Eric