News 2003
Virgin Mobile and Nokia join forces to N-Gage the audience at the best festival of the year
03/07/2003
- Nokia is the official handset partner of Virgin Mobile, headline sponsor of the V Festival
- Virgin Mobile and Nokia unveil on-site plans
- Nokia to showcase the Nokia N-Gage and the new Nokia 3300, music phone
Virgin Mobile, headline sponsor of the V Festivals and the UK’s fastest-growing network, today announced Nokia is its official handset partner for this summer’s V Festivals at Hylands Park, Essex, and Weston Park, Staffordshire.
Virgin Mobile and Nokia will be working in partnership to help make the Festival the event of the summer: to add the music Virgin Mobile and Nokia will be providing a variety of promotions, merchandise giveaways, an onsite nightclub and product trials. They will also be staging the in-between-band entertainment: ‘Text the Fest’ and ‘Foto the Fest’, which sees festival-goers send text and picture messages to the huge ‘jumbotron’ screens either side of the main stage. Last year, more than 30,000 jokes, proposals, witticisms, pictures and crowd-pleasing announcements were sent to the screens.
Nokia will be showcasing two brand new products to the V Festival audience over the weekend - the Nokia N-Gage and the Nokia 3300. The handsets will be demonstrated by teams of Virgin Mobile Angels, who will also give festival-goers any help or advice they may need about the Festival itself.
The Nokia N-Gage is Nokia’s revolutionary new mobile ‘game deck’ and will be the star of the show at the Virgin Mobile Red Light Club, with its own dedicated area. The Nokia N-Gage creates an entirely new market for time, place and context-sensitive game genres. Built for active and hard-core gamers, the Nokia N-Gage allows for online, mobile, multiplayer game play with today’s hottest titles. In addition to gaming, the Nokia N-Gage mobile game deck also features a digital music player (MP3/AAC), stereo FM radio, as well as a tri-band GSM 900/1800/1900 mobile phone. The N-Gage will be launched in the UK early October.
Also making its debut at the V Festival is the Nokia 3300. Designed specifically for music lovers, it’s packed with features such as an MP3 player, stereo FM radio, and a digital recorder. It’s also the first mobile GSM phone that supports True Tones - ring tones with real music - allowing users to choose songs and any number of sounds or special effects as their personalised ring tone. And adding to the experience, users can listen to their favourite tracks while playing one of the preloaded Java™ games at the same time.
The hugely popular Virgin Mobile Red Light Club, the first ever nightclub seen at a festival, will return this year. Once again, it’ll be hosted by Nuphonic Productions, and will be presenting the best dance music the V Festival has to offer. Confirmed DJs include David Holmes, Adam Freeland and Ashley Beedle.
The hugely popular V Festival is in its 8th year, and this is the fourth year Virgin Mobile has been the headline sponsor. V Festival 2003 promises to be the best year yet, with some of the world’s biggest music stars taking to the stage, including Coldplay, The Red Hot Chili Peppers, Foo Fighters, David Gray and Kelly Osbourne. The V Festival takes place on the 16th and 17th August, at the twin sites of Hylands Park, Essex, and Weston Park, Staffordshire.
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For further information please contact:
Virgin Mobile:
Press office on 0845 600 6272 or pressoffice@virginmobile.com
Alison Bonny – 07802 430276, alison.bonny@virginmobile.com
Joanne Baker – 07941 233300, Joanne.baker@virginmobile.com
Consolidated Communications:
Piers Newson-Smith – 07867 520532, piersn@consol.co.uk
Julia Clark – 07941 230500, juliac@consol.co.uk
The RED Consultancy: info on Nokia Mobile Phones:
Vicki Fox or Alex Williams on 020 7465 6431 or e-mail nokiateam@redconsultancy.com.
GBC: info on Nokia N-Gage:
Sarah Mines or Jessica Rowntree on 0208 322 1922 or email: n-gage@gbc.co.uk
About Virgin Mobile:
Virgin Mobile is now established as the most successful virtual network operator in the world, and is the UK's fifth network. Since its launch in November 1999 it has attracted over 2.7 million customers, making it one of the fastest growing mobile phone companies in history.
Virgin Mobile is a 50:50 joint venture company between Sir Richard Branson's Virgin Group and Deutsche Telekom's T-Mobile, and is the UK's first mobile virtual operator.
It has scored a number of firsts, including being the first operator to scrap peak rate calls, introduce a daily discounting tariff, the first company in the world to introduce an integrated MP3 mobile phone and the first company to offer all of its customers a content-rich voice portal with the launch of its 4321 service.
In the UK, Virgin Mobile phones are available direct on 0845 6000 600; on the web at www.virginmobile.com; or on the High Street at over 6,000 outlets including Virgin Megastore, Megastore Xpress, Sanity, Sainsbury, Tesco, Safeway, Asda, John Lewis, Littlewoods, Argos, The Link, Dixons, Carphone Warehouse, Comet, Phones 4 U, TOMO, Woolworths, Jungle.com, Toys R Us and Rymans.
Virgin Mobile employs 1,500 staff on four sites, Trowbridge, London, Daventry and Middlesbrough.
About Nokia:
Nokia is the world leader in mobile communications. Backed by its experience, innovation, user-friendliness and secure solutions, the company has become the leading supplier of mobile phones and a leading supplier of mobile, fixed and IP networks. By adding mobility to the Internet Nokia creates new opportunities for companies and further enriches the daily lives of people. Nokia is a broadly held company with listings on six major exchanges.
