Church Offers Free U2 Tickets

February 28, 2005 by

Bono's soul.You could win tickets to a sold-out U2 concert from a church. Christ’s Church of the Valley in Peoria, Ariz. is giving away the free tickets on their web site. Hopeful U2 fans in the Phoenix area (or looking for a road trip on April 15) can enter online and return daily to increase their chances of winning.

The promotion doesn’t require visiting the church, though they are hoping to promote their Easter service, which is more of a family fun day, including an outdoor service, free food, and a carnival with inflatable games, face paint and more.

In addition to promoting their Easter service, the church is also offering a link to a list of commonly asked questions about Christianity, in hopes of sharing the Gospel with curious U2 fans.

With all the spirituality infusing U2 and their music (see Walk On: The Spiritual Journey of U2), as well as their world’s biggest rock band status, this seems like a smart promotion. They’re tapping into the word of mouth power of a world famous icon, yet it’s limited to a local level. It’s also a low-risk outreach—it’s easy to tell friends about and there’s no catch forcing someone to attend a church service in order to win.

Though a little skepticism is necessary. Contests aren’t always marketing homeruns, suffering from potentially diluting the brand, upsetting the losers, and not paying off. Successful contests often let everybody win at least something and give away whatever the company is selling (so as not to distract from the company’s brand), though the latter is more difficult for the church.

We’ll have to wait and see. As for me? I know I could go for some free U2 tickets—too bad Phoenix is 1,800 miles away.

Post By:

Kevin D. Hendricks


When Kevin isn't busy as the editor of Church Marketing Sucks, he runs his own writing and editing company, Monkey Outta Nowhere. Kevin has been blogging since 1998, runs the hyperlocal site West St. Paul Reader, and has published several books, including 137 Books in One Year: How to Fall in Love With Reading, The Stephanies and all of our church communication books.
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4 Responses to “Church Offers Free U2 Tickets”

  • thoughts
    March 15, 2005

    Cities Ninety-Sucks

    Speaking of music, I’m listening to Cities 97 today while I work. Why? Bribery. It’s–sigh–U-2sday (shudder) on Cities 97 today, which means when they play a U2 song you can call in and try to win tickets to the upcoming,…


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  • darrell .::. buchanan
    March 15, 2005

    Update: Free U2 Tickets

    A couple of weeks ago, I mentioned that Church Marketing Sucks lost an email about a church giving away free U2 tickets to encourage the “unchurched” to visit.
    As one interested in truth-in-advertising, I am happy to note that Kevin Hendricks h…


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  • Henry Long
    April 21, 2005

    I’d love the U2 tickets as well, but somehow I just don’t see Jesus handing out gladiator tickets at the sermon on the mount. I too received a couple of “interesting” postcards from a local church. The first was offering a chance to win a cruise for two, but you had to attend the 1:30 service to be entered. The same church just sent out a card featuring a Motocross exhibition after church. I don’t have a problem with Motocross, but do we really need this sort of thing to attract people to church? Perhaps we’ve lost focus on what it takes to attract people to Christ—striving to live as Christ did and building relationships.


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  • Mark H. Hendricks
    October 4, 2006

    It’s this sort of constant negativity that has the church stuck in second gear. In ANY other business, you check to see what has worked in the past, when you are sure it no longer works, it doesn’t matter what you do. ANYthing you do is better than continuing in the same direction. At least you have a chance to learn from the mistakes.


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