We will be hosting the Boston Twestival at Red Sky Boston - just outside Fanieul Hall. (The exact address is16-18 North Street, Boston.) Doors open for the event at 6:00PM (on March 25th - of course).

Admission gets you one raffle ticket and you will have an option to buy additional tickets during the event.  We will also have a few items for a silent auction.  Check back as I’ll be giving shout outs to the amazing group of donations and sponsors we have for this event.

About a week ago, we put out the call for DJ’s, Bands, Entertainers to assuage the crowds at Twestival Boston.

One man answered the call, the enigmatic @teh_center.

I started coordinating with him, and immediately got 3 names back. His real name, his stage name, and his twitter moniker.

Like I said, enigmatic.

Which means, we found our DJ.

So who is our man behind the virtual turntables?

In his own words:

I’m a 26 year old male raised in Western Massachusetts. Been in love with music since very young. Played saxaphone at age 10-12. Then at thirteen learned to play bass guitar then drums at age 18. Played in a couple of rock and industrial bands. Really came to a halt as these stories usually do. I would have to say it is radio which killed my interest eventually in being in a band.

There were other things but one day I was driving and decided against my better judgment to see what was playing on the areas music stations. It was all so sad and awful. Kinda felt like if this is what people like I don’t want any part of it.

At 21 began writing music using Ableton (greatest music DAW ever) and midi instruments.  I have always been a huge fan of electronic music since about age 12 or 13. I really liked sequencing and making noise.

Luckily in early 2007 I found some fellow musicians that were really doing what I was striving for and that kick started my foray into analogue equipment and DJing.

I have been recording electronic, ghetto-tech, and noise for lack of a better word under the name Teh_Center since 2007.

I have released one album download here: http://rapidshare.com/files/156496896/Teh_Center_2008.zip and plan to release another album which is a mixture of bare bone percussion and sci-fi noises by the end of 2009.

For those interested in hearing or reading a little more about teh_center, he has a muxtape page at tehcenter.muxtape.com, and some of his original works are on soundcloud at http://soundcloud.com/kamolivers/tracks. He’s on twitter at twitter.com/teh_center.

Twestival Boston wants to thank Teh_Center for DJing for us!

-JW

Tonight, Twestival Local Boston will be supporting SmallCanBeBig.org at OM Restaurant in Harvard Square from 6:30-10:00PM!

Do you have your tickets yet?

Remember, each ticket represents a direct donation to SmallCanBeBig.org!

Look forward to seeing you there!

-JW

The results  are in, and Twestival Local Boston will be supporting SmallCanBeBig.org on September 10, 6:30-10:00PM at OM Restaurant in Harvard Square!

SmallCanBeBig.org is a charity that uses micro-donations to help families on the verge of losing their homes, their health, their livelihood, or mobility because of a shortfall in their income. Local charities nominate the families for consideration, and SmallCanBeBig acts as a pass through for all donations.

It is an awesome cause, and Twestival Boston is proud to partner with them!

We have submitted SmallCanBeBig to Twestival as our selection. Ticket sales will begin once we have confirmation that that meets the mothership’s guidelines. It should be just a formality.

We are floored by the amount of votes, tweets, and comments that our voting process recieved. You all ROCK.

Yes, it was messy. Yes, it could have been done another, or a better way.

On the other hand, it showed how much passion and interest there is in Twestival, and how much Boston cares.

Please remember that passion when ticket sales begin, or when we ask for donations. Remember, without you, Twestival Boston cannot succeed!

Rock on,

JW

Yesterday, I promised that I would post all of the candidates that have been brought to our attention for Twestival Local.

Below, you will find a list of charities and non-profits that have either been nominated for consideration, or have asked to be included. A couple of these are big charities or non-profits. Most are small. A case could be made for both. Some of these are based in Boston, but have a Global Mission. Others work strictly for our community. Some of these are relevant to our mission for this event, others are not.

Here is how it is going to work. Time is pressing, so Greater Boston will have 48 hours to deliberate, vote, convince, cajole, and otherwise champion the cause you think Twestival Local Boston should donate to.

You can do so by commenting below, replying to @bostontwestival, or direct messaging @bostontwestival.

Friday night August 28, voting will be closed, and the results tallied.

After that, we will announce the results.

Nominees:

The Jimmy Fund

Since its founding in 1948, the Jimmy Fund has supported the fight against cancer in children and adults at Boston’s Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, helping to raise the chances of survival for cancer patients around the world.

The Greater Boston Food Bank

The Greater Boston Food Bank is a nearly $63 million-a-year charitable business, distributing approximately 30 million pounds of food and grocery products annually to a network of nearly 600 community hunger-relief agencies in a dedicated partnership to feed the hungry in eastern Massachusetts. It is a member of Feeding America, the nation’s largest domestic hunger-relief organization.

Metropolitan Boston Housing Partnership

MBHP is the state’s largest regional provider of rental housing voucher assistance.  We serve homeless, elderly, disabled, and low- and moderate-income individuals and families.  Our region spans Boston and 29 surrounding communities.

The Red Sox Foundation

Our primary focus is in serving the health, education, recreation, and social service needs of children and families in need across New England. Our goal is to harness the passion our fans have for the Red Sox and transform it into a vehicle for positive change in our community.

Small Can Be Big

SmallCanBeBig.org is a new online model for charitable giving designed to help local families on the brink of homelessness by harnessing the power of small, direct donations.

Accion USA

ACCION USA works in domestic microfinance providing access to business financing and counseling to low- and moderate-income communities. Their focus is on microentrepreneurs, often minorities and women, who build businesses, provide jobs, create assets for themselves and their families and contribute to the development of their communities. Their presence in the Boston small business community has touched hundreds of lives, helping people build their credit and achieve their dreams.

Cradle To Crayons

Our Mission: To provide, free of charge, low-income and homeless children from birth to pre-teen the basic essentials they need to be safe, warm, ready to learn, and valued. We also set a foundation for lasting change through the meaningful, tangible volunteer opportunities we provide to thousands of youth and adults each year.

VHL Family Alliance

Von Hippel-Lindau (VHL) is a genetic condition causing the abnormal growth of blood vessels. The VHL Family Alliance provides information for families and physicians about this disorder, and local self-help support groups for families affected with VHL.

Room To Grow

The mission of Room to Grow is to enrich the lives of babies born into poverty throughout their critical first three years of development.

The Staley Foundation

The Staley Foundation acts on its belief that cancer survivors need a strong fundamental base of education, advocacy, and assistance to persevere in their cancer battle and beyond to live their best lives.

Project Bread

As the state’s leading anti-hunger organization, Project Bread is dedicated to alleviating, preventing, and ultimately ending hunger in Massachusetts.

Friends of Boston’s Homeless

Friends of Boston’s Homeless is a 501(C)(3) non-profit corporation working in partnership with Homeless Services of the Boston Public Health Commission to develop and fund innovative, solution-oriented programs to help the homeless move beyond shelter and back into the community as independent citizens.

MitoAction

MitoAction’s vision is to create a community of support that reaches every child, adult, and caregiver affected by a mitochondrial disease.

Effective awareness and advocacy will guarantee that every patient has access to specialized care and a network of support and information that improves the journey for every individual affected.

Homes for Families

Homes for Families is an advocacy group that builds powerful relationships between homeless and formerly homeless families, service providers, concerned citizens, business, government and others who share the goal of ending family homelessness.

The Free Software Foundation

The Free Software Foundation (FSF) is a 501(c)3 donor supported charity founded in 1985 and based in Boston, MA, USA. The FSF has a worldwide mission to promote computer user freedom and to defend the rights of all free software users.

So there you have it. Fifteen worthy causes for Twestival Local Boston.

Discuss!

-JW

In three weeks, Twestival is going to do something that I do not think has been done before: Twestival Local.

Twestival has charged local teams to rally their community behind a charity which meets a pressing need in their city.

As far as I know, this has never been done before: 4  nights, 200+ cities, all proceeds given right back to their local community.

As news has spread about this, the Boston Twestival team has been inundated with three questions:

1. Is Boston going to participate?
2. What charity are we going to support this time?
3. How do I help?

To answer the first question: yes, we are going to participate. Location, time, and sponsor details are still being arranged. Stay tuned.

As for which charity: we currently have 15 charities that have been put forward as candidates for this Twestival.

All of them are worthy of our support, and frankly, we are having trouble narrowing it down.

So we are going to do something that hasn’t been done before (as far as we know): in a blog post tomorrow, we will post all of the candidates, and the Boston Social Media Community will have their say.

If you have a charity you want considered, comment below, and get it included in the list.

If you want to help, DM or message  @BostonTwestival. We are looking for food, drink, and giveaway sponsors. We could use a nifty Twestival Boston logo. We have some ideas about location, but are still open to suggestions. There is lots to be done, and too few hands to do it with.

Let’s seize this opportunity to “Do Good Globally By Acting Locally” and make Twestival Local Boston rock!

-JW

We finally have a ton of fun photos from BostonTwestival up on our Flickr Pool:

http://www.flickr.com/groups/1027808@N21/

Tag yourself, tag your friends!

We’re please to announce that Boston’s Twestival was a fun time and a successful event. We raised almost $4000! Globally, Twestival raised over $250,000 and counting. There were 34,000 Tweets about Twestival, 6,600 Twitterers and 4,000 ReTweets.

We’d like to thank our awesome sponsors for providing a venue, donations and raffle items:

• Ballards
• BYKI
• Caminito Steakhouse
• eInvite
• FreshBooks
• KaBloom
• Marketing Profs
• Mimobot
• OM Restaurant
• openSUSE
• Shift Communications
• SXSW
• Twitter Whore
• ZenDesk

Pictures are still coming in from the event. Feel free to add your Twestival Boston pictures to our Flickr group. If you see someone you know, tag them!

Thanks to everyone that came, everyone that bought a ticket, everyone who donated time, energy, and Tweets!

Bring out your dough! Bring out your dough!

Today is the last day to get tickets for Boston Twestival. Duh, it’s today! Boston Twestival is shaping up to be a great event. Many of the area’s social media and pr heavy hitters will be turning out for the event. Why wouldn’t they? Twestival is a great event, charity: water is a great cause, OM Restaurant is a great location, and there will be some GREAT raffle prizes:

•    SXSW 2009 - Interactive conference pass
•    Freshbooks - $50 Amazon GC and FreshBooks ShuttleBus Account
•    einvite.com is going to donate 10 packages of print-at-home stationary. @soxgal
•    SHIFT Communications: $50, $100 $200 gift cards from Best Buy
•    5 signed copies of Josh Bernoff-Groundswell books
•    Caminito Argentinen Steakhouse $50 Gift Certificate
•    MarketingProfs 1 year subscription ($195 value)
•    BYKI (from Transparent Language) - 3 multi-linqual software packs of your choice
•    Mimobot - 3x 4 GB flash drive
•    KaBloom - gift certificates to get that special someone flowers (just saved a couple of guys some dough)
•    $25 GC to the Christmas Tree Shop
•    2 autographed by the authors books from Ann Kingman, www.booksonthenightstand.com @annkingman “Bridge of Sighs” was a best of the year in 2007, and “Cutting For Stone” will certainly be a best of 2009. Both books deal with environmental and health issues in their own way; “Bridge of Sighs” is set in an upstate NY town where the cancer rates have risen as the industry dumped its toxic chemicals into the river. “Cutting For Stone” is a sweeping epic set in Ethiopia, where medical staff fight the poverty and malnutrition of the population. Both books are more than that, of course, but in a small way they do relate to the theme of Twestival.
•    2 TwitterWhore T-shirts @scottstead

Tickets will be available at the door, but will be limited.

You can purchase tickets here:

The event will be taking place at Om Lounge is at 92 Winthrop St. in Cambridge, MA.

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