Hollywood Undead Wins Virgin Mobile USA's 'Book The Band' to Capture Spot on Star-Studded Roster at Virgin Mobile Festival

Hollywood Undead Wins Virgin Mobile USA's 'Book The Band' to Capture Spot on Star-Studded Roster at Virgin Mobile Festival

Masked Alternative Rock Group on A&M/Octone Records Will Perform Live For the First Time Ever at the Largest Music Festival on the East Coast

WARREN, N.J., July 23 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- For a band that has only performed online and never live, the 2008 Virgin Mobile Festival, the largest festival on the East Coast, figures to be quite a premiere. Fueled by the popularity of MySpace and other social networking sites, Los Angeles's own Hollywood Undead (www.myspace.com/hollywoodundead) nabbed more than half the votes in Virgin Mobile USA's second annual Book The Band contest sponsored by Kyocera Wireless and MySpace.

(Logo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20080222/NYF040LOGO )

Hollywood Undead will join more than 40 acts including an all-star lineup featuring Foo Fighters, Jack Johnson, Kanye West, Nine Inch Nails, Stone Temple Pilots and Bob Dylan.

The Virgin Mobile Festival takes place August 9 and 10 at Baltimore's Pimlico Race Course(R) with entertainment spanning across two stages, a dance tent, and a total of 25 acres of arts and attractions. With their signature masks on, Hollywood Undead will take to the stage on August 10, kicking off Day Two of the festival with their fusion of hip-hop, emo and metal.

"Music has always been at the core of the Virgin Mobile USA brand and for that reason, Book The Band is a natural extension of Virgin Mobile Festival," said Ron Faris, Director of Brand Development & Partnerships, Virgin Mobile USA. "As far as we're concerned, this year's contest was won on the mobile phone, with Hollywood Undead ramping up a huge campaign to get over 186,485 text votes. We at Virgin Mobile USA along with Kyocera Wireless are thrilled to host their first live show at our Virgin Mobile Festival."

"Book the Band is a brilliant extension of the next wave of music discovery, and Virgin Mobile Festival has certainly found promising talent in Hollywood Undead to open Day Two," said Sir Richard Branson, whose legendary Virgin Festival heritage is the inspiration for the Virgin Mobile Festival. "I'm curious to see how well they'll do going from MySpace to our space!"

"We can't think of a better venue than the Virgin Mobile Festival to play our first-ever live show," said J-Dog of Hollywood Undead. "To stand in front of the same fans who will be there to see musical legends perform is unreal. We'll do everything we can to make our first show something for fans to remember."

Hollywood Undead beat out four other up-and-coming bands by receiving an overwhelming 53% (285,000 votes) of the more than 540,000 votes placed online and via text between June 16 through July 21. Hollywood Undead will release their highly anticipated debut album, "Swan Songs" (via A&M/Octone) on August 26, 2008. Tampa-based Automatic Loveletter came in second place with more than 161,000 votes. New Jersey's The Parlor Mob, Brooklyn's We Are Scientists, and New York's The Virgins came in third, fourth and fifth, respectively.

For more information about Hollywood Undead, visit the Book The Band section of the Virgin Mobile Festival website - www.virginmobilefestival.com/booktheband . Tickets for The Virgin Mobile Festival are available through Ticketmaster at www.tickemaster.com or 1-800-551-SEAT. Two-day tickets are $175 for General Admission and $450 for VIP. Single-day tickets are $97.50 for General Admission and $250 for VIP tickets. A charity contribution of $1 per day will be applied to each ticket to benefit The RE*Generation http://www.virginmobileusa.com/regeneration/ . Fans can check out the official festival website at www.virginmobilefestival.com to sign up for news and updates.

About Virgin Mobile USA

Virgin Mobile USA (NYSE:VM), through its operating company Virgin Mobile USA, L.P., offers consumers control, flexibility and choice through monthly Plans Without Annual Contracts, with national coverage powered by the Sprint PCS network. Virgin Mobile USA's full slate of smart, stylish and affordable handsets, including the Wild Card, Slash and Flare, are available at approximately 40,000 top retailers nationwide and online at www.virginmobileusa.com, with Top-Up cards available at more than 140,000 locations. J.D. Power and Associates ranked Virgin Mobile USA highest in customer satisfaction among wireless prepaid services in both 2006 and 2007, and its customers report a 90% satisfaction rate.

Virgin Mobile USA contributes a portion of profits from downloadable content to The RE*Generation, its pro-social initiative to help homeless youth; and allows customers to earn free minutes in exchange for viewing advertising content online through the innovative Sugar Mama program.

About Virgin Mobile Festival

The third Virgin Mobile Festival, the largest art and music event on the East coast which takes place August 9 - 10, will ignite an eclectic, compelling group of music acts at Pimlico Race Course in Baltimore. Headliners include the Foo Fighters, Jack Johnson, Kanye West, Nine Inch Nails and Stone Temple Pilots along with other acts: Iggy & The Stooges, Paramore, Chuck Berry, The Black Keys and Wilco. In addition to two main stages, the festival features a dance tent, hosting the hottest names in electronic music, including Moby and Underworld. The Virgin Mobile Festival will be produced for the third year by I.M.P., one of the country's leading independent concert promoters. Visit www.virginmobilefestival to view full artist line-up or to purchase tickets.

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Photo: NewsCom: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20080222/NYF040LOGO
AP Archive: http://photoarchive.ap.org/
PRN Photo Desk, photodesk@prnewswire.com
Source: Virgin Mobile USA

CONTACT: Corinne Nosal of Virgin Mobile USA, +1-908-607-4235,
Corinne.nosal@virginmobileusa.com; or Cindy Coppola of Ruder Finn,
+1-310-882-4019, coppolac@ruderfinn.com; or Valerie Pensa of A&M-Octone
Records, +1-646-613-1408, val@amoctone.com

Web site: http://www.virginmobileusa.com/
http://www.virginmobilefestival.com/
http://www.virginmobilefestival.com/booktheband
http://www.myspace.com/hollywoodundead
http://www.virginmobileusa.com/regeneration

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