A week with the Vans Warped Tour
Last summer, Ashley Mateo (COM’08) scored her dream job — promoting the Vans Warped Tour.
Ashley Mateo took a tour last summer that was out of the ordinary — traveling with the Vans Warped Tour.
Mateo (COM’08) was one of 12 interns chosen from among 42,000 applicants in a contest sponsored by MasterCard. She won the traveling fellowship by writing an essay about her dream to start a music magazine and by filming a video explaining her favorite moment in music history. She worked closely during the summer with Sanscape Marketing, the company responsible for promoting the Warped Tour, which publishes a fan newsletter each summer. Mateo interviewed by phone bands like the Offspring, Hawthorne Heights, and Silverstein, and she helped design a promotional booth for Fall Out Boy.
The high point, of course, was the week of touring with the band. Mateo, who is the music editor of the Daily Free Press and a member of Alpha Delta Pi, received tour passes and was able to meet many of the performers.
“The best part of the experience,” she says, “was learning that these people in bands who I’ve idolized forever are just normal people, who do they same things I do. ”