Jesusfreakhideout.com Music News, March 2008: Winter Jam 2008 Tour Spectacular Finishes Out In Nashville With A Bang

Winter Jam 2008 Tour Spectacular Finishes Out In Nashville With A Bang

Over 300K Fans Attend 34 city tour with More than 4000 Children Sponsored through Holt International

NEWS SOURCE: The M Collective
March 20, 2008

Nashville, TN-March 20, 2008- The Winter Jam Tour Spectacular concluded its 34-city run with a bang and a near sold out crowd this past weekend at the Sommet Center in Nashville. The Winter Jam tour is Christian music's largest annual musical extravaganza and for this year’s 2008 tour they brought in more fans than ever before. Winter Jam had an impressive 16% increase in attendance from last year equaling out to a total of 311, 836 screaming music fanatics coming to see MercyMe, Skillet, BarlowGirl, NewSong, American Idol's Mandisa and Connersvine.

It was in Greensboro, NC where Winter Jam had its largest crowd in their history, bringing in 18,078 music maniacs from the nearby areas. Other large attraction cities were at the BJCC Arena in Birmingham, AL reeling in 16,364 and in Oklahoma City, OK at The Ford Center 15,471 fans came out to support their favorite artists. Winter Jam also had 53,256 people make decisions for Christ; that is a 39% increase from 2007.

“This increase confirms that God is sovereignly building His Church and it validates that the Gospel we preach and sing about is ever relevant and amazingly life changing!” says Tony Nolan, Youth Speaker for The Winter Jam 2008 Tour Spectacular.

Fans were not the only ones going home with a smile on their faces; thousands of children were given the hope of a loving family and a promising future because 4,331 fans became child sponsors through Holt International, a world leader in international adoption and child welfare.

Since 1956, Holt International has placed over 40,000 orphaned and abandoned children with adoptive families in the United States. Each year Holt also reaches out to thousands of vulnerable children through programs that improve children’s health and that help at risk families to provide a stable nurturing home.

Along with Holt, Wayne E. Bailey Produce Company, HearItFirst and Dave Ramsey’s “Generation Change” were all proud sponsors of Winter Jam 2008. Word Label Group hosted the Pre-Jam Party featuring pureNRG and Group 1 Crew, which took place before the main event and was co-sponsored by media giants Fox Faith and Word Label Group. The Real Encounter BMX/Skate Team followed the Pre-Jam Party with AMAZING stunts that brought the crowd to its feet every night!

Averaging out to 9,171 concertgoers per night, Winter Jam 2008 follows the highly successful 2007 tour, which landed in Pollstar’s Top 10 Winter Tours surpassing artists like Nickelback, Red Hot Chili Peppers and John Mayer. Winter Jam '07 averaged over 8,000 people each night with select shows having more than 10,000 in attendance.

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