It’s only a few days away from the Rock-A-Thon, and I recently had a chance to chat with it’s co-founder Paul Anthony about the upcoming Rock-A-Thon event.  Check out my discussion with him below:

RBA: What is the Rock-a-Thon?

PA: The Rock-A-Thon powered by Energizer® Advanced Lithium is the first of its kind Rock Band marathon to help raise money for Child’s Play, a charity that donates toys, video games, books and cash for sick kids in children’s hospitals across North America.

Concurrently, we will also be attempting to set a new Guinness Book of World Record (Gamer’s Edition) for Longest Relay Rock Band concert by playing 90 hours straight.

Check out the rest of the interview after the jump…

RBA: When is the Rock-A-Thon?

PA: The Rock-A-Thon powered by Energizer® Advanced Lithium starts on Black Friday at 12:05 a.m. at the Meridian in Houston, Texas and continues until Monday.

RBA: How did the Rock-A-Thon come to be?

PA: In December of 2008 a couple of friends and I were watching some of the great charity fundraisers that were going on during the holiday season and we kicked around the idea of getting involved ourselves. We reached out to Child’s Play and the other events asking them, “What do we have to do to support Child’s Play.” Their answers were nothing but positive as we told them of what we had planned on doing. A few months after that we started to put everything in motion with the first thing on our to-do list was to find a good sponsor. Since we were going to be playing for 90 hours straight we thought Energizer® Advanced Lithium would be a perfect fit to power the event, since Energizer® Advanced Lithium batteries provide hours and hours of uninterrupted game play. We contacted Energizer and they were more than happy to help sponsor an event that was raising money for Child’s Play.

RBA: What sponsors are involved and what have they helped you out with?

PA: Our main sponsor is Energizer® Advanced Lithium, who is not only powering the event with their batteries, but also donating $1 to Child’s Play for every fan that attends the event, up to $5,000.

HostGator.com is providing our web services so we can stream this event at therockathon.com to the world and provide entertainment even if you are not able to make it to Houston to see the event.

Geeky Cookies, a Salt Lake City based cookie company did a contest with us where we gave away Microsoft Points and a dozen cookies to a lucky winner.

Product support came from Rock Pedal, Madcatz, and New England Music Supply who supplied us with great product and accessories for Rock Band!

Locally here in Houston we have some very generous companies that stepped up. Meridian, the concert venue where we will be live from, has given us great promotional support. Buffalo Specialties, our printing company, gave us a great deal on the shirts as well as a great secret prize to be given away during the event. And Inn at the Ballpark, a very luxurious hotel that we will be staying at, not only helped put every single member of The Rock-A-Thon powered by Energizer® Advanced Lithium, up in a hotel room, but they extended the same great rates to anyone that wanted to stay with them during the concert. Another great thing about them is that 5% of those room rates, even ours, will go to Child’s Play Charity!

RBA: Who are some of the people involved? How are they contributing to the Rock-a-thon?

PA: Just yesterday I picked up A.J. “HatPerson” Mazur from DPad Productions at the airport. He is our video and web stream guy who you may know from the “Cooking By The Book” mashup video, and many other YouTube creations. Another Tuber is Freddie Wong, who has an amazing history in music games from his YYZ video to his Guitar Hero II championship win at the World Series of Video Games in Dallas, TX.

The professional gaming career of Freddie leads into two great contestants from WCG Ultimate Gamer that was shown on SyFy this past spring: Robert “Prod1gy X” Paz and Ciji “StarSlay3r” Thornton. Robert himself already holds a World Record in Rock Band 2, and Ciji has many top rankings among female players at music games across the board. Both have been so great to work with even before this event has started and I can’t wait to play alongside them on stage come this Friday.

In addition to the big names The Rock-A-Thon powered by Energizer® Advanced Lithium has some of the most skilled Rock Band players from across the country converging on Houston to make sure that this event is a rousing non-stop success.

RBA: What can people expect from the Rock-a-thon? What events are going on the people can check out?

PA: The Rock-A-Thon powered by Energizer® Advanced Lithium will be four days of music and entertainment. For every fan that comes out Energizer will be donated $1 to Child’s Play, up to $5,000, so we want to encourage everyone to come on out. There will be raffles for great prizes like a year’s worth of Energizer® Advanced Lithium batteries. We will also be selling the official The Rock-A-Thon t-shirts for $25 with all proceeds going to Child’s play.

RBA: What has been some of the coolest things you’ve seen so far leading up to the Rock-a-thon?

PA: I have to admit the out pouring of support from sponsors, and the chance to talk to some of the big names we are bringing in is the coolest thing so far. I was asked that question in an interview once, “What is the coolest thing you have ever done,” and my answer at that time was the planning of this event. That was back in February. Little did I know that answer would hold even more truth now than it did then. I still cannot fathom that we are so close to this event, that I have done so many great things with this event, and we haven’t even stepped on stage yet.

RBA: How much are you expecting to raise?

PA: I don’t have an exact total that I am expecting to raise, because I don’t want to limit how much we raise for the children by putting down a goal, but if the Rock-A-Thon powered by Energizer® Advanced Lithium raises $100,000 we’ll play the “Energizer® Advanced Lithium Encore,” which consists of 20 song signifying the 20 additional hours* of playing time Energizer® Advanced Lithium batteries provide in wireless gaming accessories.

RBA: And finally, how can people help out and participate?

PA: If you are in the Houston, Texas area then come to Meridian and check us out, purchase a t-shirt, or make a donation on your own. We will have giveaways and raffles for those in attendance. But if you cannot make it to Houston for the event then tune in via therockathon.com where we will be accepting on-line donations through our Chip-In widget and those will also qualify you for some great prizes including some of the most sought after Rock Band accessories. If you wanted to get involved now, we are taking donations before the event through the website already, and selling T-Shirts throughout the US until we kick off the event exclusively through our sponsor New England Music Supply right on the front page.

Be sure to head on over to the Rock-A-Thon’s page and make a donation. It’s for a great cause!  Thanks, Paul!

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