Dead & Company Participation Row To Feature March For Our Lives Booth

Dead & Company kicks off an extensive tour at the Xfinity Center in Mansfield, Massachusetts this evening. HeadCount revealed March For Our Lives will be a featured guest on Participation Row, the activism village that has been a staple of past tours and will once again host various non-profit organizations at each Dead & Company concert this summer.

March For Our Lives was founded by high school students who survived a mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida on February 14. The students organized demonstrations across the country on March 24th with the aim of ending further school shootings and have continued their efforts to fight gun violence. Dead & Company attendees who visit the March For Our Lives booth will have the opportunity to meet Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School alumni and pose for pictures with messages about voting. HeadCount’s efforts at March For Our Lives demonstrations on March 24th led to more than 5,000 people registering to vote, while more recently HeadCount helped student activist David Hogg put together voter registration drives at over 1,000 high schools.

Dead & Company guitarist and HeadCount founding board member Bob Weir joined the rest of his band mates in meeting with students from Parkland and their families at the group’s concert in Sunrise, Florida on February 26. Weir spoke with the students and their families about teaming up with HeadCount. “We know Bobby and the whole band were really moved by the Parkland kids,” HeadCount executive director Andy Bernstein said in a statement about the decision to include a March For Our Lives booth among Participation Row. “And working with these kids to organize voter registration drives has been an amazing experience for HeadCount. Bringing them on Dead & Co. tour seemed like a perfect way to tie this all together.”

HeadCount has co-organized Dead & Company Summer Tour 2018 Participation Row with environmental group REVERB. The Owsley Stanley Foundation, the Rainforest Action Network and the Seva Foundation will be among the non-profits from the “Dead Family” that will join March For Our Lives as part of this summer’s Participation Row. Each tour stop will feature a charity auction to help raise funds for participating organizations. Concertgoers who take three actions with non-profits on Participation Row will get a numbered, limited edition VOTE pin and will have a chance to win a signed D’Angelico guitar. Dead-centric accounting firm Schulman Lobel donated the pins, which are similar in style to artist Robert Indiana’s LOVE sculpture yet use the Steal Your Face logo as an “O.”