Our first Price is Right sponsorship aired yesterday and featured a Mariachi Band.

Gig Salad member Rachel Philips has a cause on her heart, and it’s to bring the gift of music to orphans in Kenya. Here’s what she’s up to, and how you can help her achieve her dream:

Music Crossing Borders is a New York City based world music ensemble dedicated to the education of students of all ages. Through performance and interaction, we introduce our audience to musical genres from all across the globe. Music blurs the boundaries between race, ethnicity and culture. It unites us as a human race, based not on what we look like or where we live, but by its indescribable ability to move us beyond words. For these reasons, it is more important now than ever to bring music to the community at large!

Music Crossing Borders provides 45 minutes of high energy, interactive assemblies designed to keep students engaged and excited, while exposing them to musical genres across the globe. Clinics are available for all grade levels–kindergarten to university–as well as synagogues, churches, other religious organizations and community organizations all over the world.

Flying Kites Global: Bringing Music to Kenyan Children

Music Crossing Borders has been invited to perform for children living in an orphanage in South Kinangop, Kenya as part of Flying Kites Global. The amount of money we need to raise to bring our six-member band over for this wonderful opportunity is a large number but big plans are in the works toward raising it! Please join us on our endeavor to bring music to the children of this Kenyan orphanage by learning more here.

By giving what you can and passing on this link, you’ll be helping us tremendously in this wonderful cause! Thank you for your support!

Best,
Rachel and Charlie
Music Crossing Borders
www.MusicCrossingBorders.com (coming soon!)

Also visit the Rachel Phillips Quintet on Gig Salad

The Gig Salad team rocks, there’s no question about it. I had a ton of fun coaching this season. Thanks to coaches Danny, Jason and John for being awesome, and to our fantastic parents and of course the kids who worked hard to be their best. What a fun season.

-Steve

Mark

New Membership Levels: We’re adding 2 new membership levels to Gig Salad: Free and Premium. The members who sign up for free will only get their name and city posted, and a button to contact them. Premium members will get the Agent-Friendly website features, more category selections, more space for audio/video, 2 extra Gig Soup leads to follow up with daily, as well as a featured spot on the main category pages. If you currently have purchased the agent-friendly feature, you will be automatically moved up to the premium level when it launches. If you do not, you will continue to enjoy all of the same features you currently have.

Brand Spankin’ New Control Panel: We’ve overhauled the control panel to make things much easier for you to navigate. Please contact us at help@gigsalad.com if things are confusing– we’re confident the new control panel will make things a lot easier for everyone.

Let us know what you think of everything!

Steve and Mark

Gig Salad proudly supports local organizations around Wilmington, NC (home of our web development and marketing headquarters) such as The Thalian Association for the Performing Arts and Winter Park Optimist Baseball. This spring we are sponsoring a tee ball team. Our kids are outstanding players and great sportsmen, and are doing the Gig Salad name proud!

The UPK, or Universal PromoKit, is the latest addition to Gig Salad. It gives our members the ability to instantly create up to 21 agent friendly websites that are targeted to specific booking agents. Each website will be found at a unique link, and any combination of these 21 websites can either function as a personal website, a generic agent-friendly site with no contact information, or as an agent-specific website, containing specific agents’ contact info on them. There are several designs to choose from, and we are adding more.

The members who have responded to us about it have been really excited. REALLY excited… in a way that we didn’t quite expect. It should go without saying that we’re excited too!

Please feel free to use the trial version of the Universal PromoKit, and upgrade if it makes sense for you. Either way, we would LOVE to hear your feedback, as we really do want this product to do exactly what you need it to do.

To give it a try, just login to your PromoKit and click the Universal PromoKit tab. Then come back here and tell us what you think, and if there are improvements or enhancements you’d like to see to make it work for you.

peace, love and gigs,
Steve & Mark

We’ve been busy here adding features that create value for our members. A recent addition: You can now receive your lead notifications by text message. The great news is that it costs nothing extra for you to receive these notifications (other than what your cell phone carrier charges you for incoming text messages). Just go to “settings” and input your carrier and cell phone number and we’ll take care of the rest.

Gig Salad member Deborah Smith Ford was written up recently in the Fort Myers edition of Florida Weekly magazine. See below for an excerpt, or see the full article.

Fort Myers actress embraces Matrix look-alike role
BY EVAN WILLIAMS

Deborah Smith Ford is always waiting for her next role to begin. She has performed in more than 30 films — six in the last 2½ years — plus commercials, television programs, modeling spots and infomercials.

Still, her acting life is “feast or famine,” Mrs. Ford said. “Actors really need to know how to invest and save.”

After “The Matrix” came out, people told her she looked like Carrie-Anne Moss’ character, Trinity, so she expanded her repertoire to include a look-alike Trinity. That opened a door into a larger world of look-alike characters.

Mrs. Ford flourished there, making friends in the look-alike community and winning a shelf-full of awards for Trinity. At the Celebrity Impersonator Convention in Las Vegas in 2007, she was honored among hundreds, like Elvis, Marilyn Monroe, Donald Trump and Tom Cruise, snagging the Reel Award for Best Actress.

Visit Deborah’s Trinity/Matrix PromoKit
Visit Deborah Smith’s PromoKit

Our new Magicians section.

Have a good idea for another appropriate category to fall under this heading? We’d love to hear your suggestions.

This week on GigSalad.com, corporate event planners have been busy booking holiday entertainment. Among the recent inquirers are: Traveler’s Insurance, Kraft Foods, Ritz Carlton, Outback Steakhouse, Time Warner Cable, Sears and the San Francisco 49ers.

Here’s a shot of his work, along with a video of the event. Enjoy!

To see Cartoon City’s Gig Salad PromoKit, click here.

A mystery guest exposes Glenn Reichle's Gig Salad gear.

Check out the goods at GigSalad.com/store, and send us a photo with your gear on and we’ll post it here!

Escape Artist Curtis Lovell

Lovell’s New Year’s resolution to obtain a world record will be attempted in Spring 2009.

“I have always wanted to obtain a world record and I have always wanted Cher to strap me in a straight jacket,” Lovell said. “I hope both goals can be accomplished 2009.

“I have been asked, ‘Are you crazy?!’ when I attempted Houdini-style stunts in the past, so I think it’s time for me to be placed in a straightjacket.”

Lovell will be placed in a straightjacket — and escape — at least 194 times in a period of eight hours during his attempt to break the world record.

Also scheduled for 2009 is Lovell’s Cube of Death, which will appear on Master of Illusions on MynetworkTv, a weekly series beginning in January 2009.

If you are Cher — or if you wish to strap Lovell in a straight jacket, host or otherwise participate in his Guinness World Record attempt, contact Lovell’s team here.