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Live Nation and State Farm(R) Renew and Expand National Sponsorship Program

Posted on: Thursday, 21 May 2009, 07:00 CDT

MORE TOURS AND MORE INCENTIVES FOR DESIGNATED DRIVERS STRENGTHEN FOURTH YEAR OF PARTNERSHIP

LOS ANGELES and BLOOMINGTON, Ill., May 21 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Live Nation (NYSE: LYV), the world's largest live music company, and State Farm, the country's largest insurer of cars and homes today announced a renewed and deepened sponsorship alliance utilizing assets of Live Nation's vertically integrated platform.

(Logo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20081203/LAW048LOGO-b)

Entering its fourth year, the alliance will expand State Farm's involvement in promoting and rewarding fans who commit to be designated drivers for events held at select Live Nation amphitheaters across the country. The program provides complimentary soft drinks to concertgoers who acknowledge they are designated drivers. The designated driver program will also be promoted on Live Nation.com as part of an overall broadening of State Farm's digital sponsorship of features on LiveNation.com, which includes exclusive sponsorship of venue map directions available on the site.

Also new this year, State Farm has increased to two the number of Live Nation tours it will sponsor with the highly anticipated national tours by No Doubt and Blink 182. Activations at No Doubt shows will include a No Doubt trivia game and a "red carpet" on the concourse of the venues where fans can get their pictures taken and retrieved for free with a redemption card on a co-branded website.

Additionally, State Farm will expand its three-year involvement with The Bamboozle Left & Right, the annual bi-coastal music festivals produced by Live Nation, to become the exclusive insurance sponsor of the shows. Elements will include exclusive backstage video content and artist interviews to be streamed on a promotional website. State Farm will also be a sponsor of a stage at each festival.

"This extended alliance with the national leader in insurance shows the value that our diverse assets and innovative activations provide for brands," said Russell Wallach, President of North American Alliance at Live Nation. "Now in its fourth year, this partnership continues to find creative ways to integrate the State Farm brand into the unique experiences that only live music events can offer."

"Live Nation's platform is ideal for getting our brand and offerings in front of the millions of music fans who attend Live Nation shows each year," said Mark Gibson, State Farm Assistant Vice President, Advertising. "The expanded programs will help build even greater loyalty and drive more customers from a diverse mix of demographics that live music events draw."

About State Farm:

State Farm insures more cars and homes than any other insurer in the U.S., is the leading insurer of watercraft and is also a leading insurer in Canada. State Farm's 17,700 agents and 68,600 employees serve, 81 million policies and accounts - more than 78.7 million auto, fire, life and health policies in the United States and Canada, and more than 1.9 million bank accounts. State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Company is the parent of the State Farm family of companies. State Farm is ranked No. 31 on the Fortune 500 list of largest companies. For more information, please visit statefarm.com(R) or in Canada statefarm.ca(R).

About Live Nation:

Live Nation's mission is to maximize the live concert experience. Our core business is producing, marketing and selling live concerts for artists via our global concert pipe. Live Nation is the largest producer of live concerts in the world, annually producing over 22,000 concerts for 1,600 artists in 33 countries. During 2008, the company sold over 50 million concert tickets and drove over 70 million unique visitors to LiveNation.com. Live Nation is transforming the concert business by expanding its concert platform into ticketing and building the industry's first artist-to-fan vertically integrated concert platform. The company is headquartered in Los Angeles, California and is listed on the New York Stock Exchange, trading under the symbol LYV. For additional information about the company, please visit www.livenation.com/investors.

SOURCE Live Nation

Source: PR Newswire

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