"The OurStage Panel" Competition Series Showcases Unsigned Artists on March 16th During SXSW Music Festival

NEW YORK, Feb. 23, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- OurStage.com, the premier digital music destination for unsigned artists, is headed to Austin, Texas during the South by Southwest Music Festival!  OurStage will crown a winner for the Season 2 finale of the site's original web series, The OurStage Panel at their official SXSW party on March 16th at The Parish.  Popular brother-and-sister pop duo and SXSW showcase band, Blondfire will also perform at the show's culmination event. 

Season 2 of the month-long web series, The OurStage Panel, launched February 16th on http://panel.ourstage.com, and features a total of sixteen OurStage artists.  Each week throughout the series, four OurStage artists have one of their original songs played before a live audience and an all-star panel of music industry experts.   The winner of each episode advances to the series' finale, which will be filmed before a live audience during the official SXSW OurStage party. The best performance - as determined by the panel - will receive a grand prize of $5,000 along with a number of cool career opportunities, including a professionally produced video interview/EPK shot by Emmy Award-winning Director/Producer Mitchell Stuart of HQ Productions,  a mentoring session with The OurStage Panel judges and a mentoring session with a senior music licensing expert.  For those unable to attend SXSW, the finale will air on http://panel.ourstage.com on March 29 at 7:30 am EST. 

The esteemed panel of judges includes Bruce Tyler (Executive Producer/Entertainment Consultant/Former Executive VP of Sony Music), Lee Dannay (Warner/Chappell Vice President of A&R), Scott Igoe (Jimmy Kimmel Live! Music Producer) and Sharon Dastur (Program Director Z100, New York, NY).  Z100 late night jock, Trey Morgan serves as the show's host alongside Carla Marie, Producer for Elvis Duran and the Morning Show.  The series is the first of its kind to give top-ranked independent artists the opportunity to hear authentic feedback from music industry heavyweights, a process that is normally done behind the scenes.

FIND OurStage on Facebook: www.facebook.com/ourstage

FOLLOW OurStage and The OurStage Panel on Twitter: www.twitter.com/ourstage & www.twitter.com/ourstagepanel

ENGAGE with The OurStage Panel series using hash tag: #ourstagepanel.

About OurStage.com

Founded in 2007, OurStage.com (www.ourstage.com) is a leading destination for music listening, discovery, and quality editorial content. With more than 200,000 artists from 40 styles of music, OurStage.com receives 4 million visits each month from 170 countries. OurStage.com's most acclaimed feature is its proprietary judging engine where the site's listeners rank the music of emerging artists for competitions that reward major opportunities to the winners—such as the chance to open for headlining acts and/or record with major label performers. To date, OurStage.com has provided opportunities for artists to open, be mentored by, or collaborate with celebrity artists such as Bon Jovi, Kid Rock, Drake, Goo Goo Dolls, HANSON, Train, John Legend, Lilith 2010, John Mayer, Monica, T-Pain, Trey Songz, Keith Urban, Travis Barker, Jane's Addiction, Hot Chelle Rae and many others. OurStage.com has also partnered with a wide range of media giants over the last few years, including: Clear Channel, Guitar Center, BET, CMT, Digital Broadcasting Group, AOL Music, MTV, and Radio One. For more information: http://www.ourstage.com.

SOURCE OurStage.com