Verizon vs. rock ‘n roll before Patriots vs. Bills at Gillette Stadium

By Rodney Brown

So you’re set up to show off your tech product to the press and public at one of the greatest venues in New England — Patriot Place at Gillette Stadium — before the season opening game of the New England Patriots. Crowds are milling all about you in the plaza right in front of The Hall and interacting with your street team crew by the handfuls. What could possibly go wrong?

How about a deafeningly loud sound check by a rock band?

Lansdowne
Photo by Rodney Brown

That was what the folks from Verizon had to face yesterday at the house the Krafts’ built, when the Boston band Lansdowne fired up their grinding emo-esque guitars on a balcony next to the CBS Scene restaurant — across the vast echoing canyon that is the main plaza of Patriot Place from Verizon’s leather couch-enabled, 60-inch flat screen-displaying FiOS booth.

In between power chords and mic checks, Phil Santoro, head of media relations for Verizon in New England, said, “We just found out about the band two hours ago.”

While Lansdowne tweaked its sound levels — seemingly trying to figure out how to both get more volume and more clarity — Santoro shouted out the schedule for the press demo of the latest FiOS features to the assembled reporters and bloggers. When Lansdowne finally appeared to get the perfect balance of deafness and sound quality, Santoro said, “OK, we’ve got until 5:15, which is when the band actually starts playing.”

With that, the Verizon presenters — Angel Cordero, John Gasowski, and Jessica Lee — launched into a rapid-fire rundown of the benefits of FiOS and its latest features, including the interactive widgets that allow customers to interact with such things as sports headlines and even their Facebook and Twitter profiles.

Back in July Verizon even announced it was opening its platform to third-party widget developers, much like Apple with its iPhone Apps store. When asked, Cordero quickly explained that much like Apple, some developers might charge for their widgets and some would offer them for free based on advertising, but that would be up to the developers.

And with that, Verizon wrapped up their demo quickly and efficiently, much like they say their fiber-optic lines operate, and just in time as Lansdowne kicked into the first song in its set and all conversations became mouth-to-ear shouting. To their credit, Lansdowne tossed a shout out to the Verizon folks in the middle of their set, clearly trying to draw the high school-age, non-home owner demographic that Verizon might be missing.

Posted by Brendan Lynch

Tags: FiOS, Gillette Stadium, Lansdowne, New England Patriots, Patriots Place, Rodney Brown, Verizon

This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 15th, 2009 at 2:19 pm and is filed under Internet, Massachusetts, Networks. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.