American Express Unstaged: How You Can Get The Most From It
If you’re not familiar with the Unstaged concert series, it’s a partnership between American Express, YouTube and VEVO that lets you interact and watch musicians perform live from your computer. But these aren’t just your run-of-the-mill concerts… they’re elaborate performances put on by big name directors.
It’s been around for a couple years now and past performances have included:
- John Legend and The Roots performed at Terminal 5 in NYC. This show was directed by Spike Lee.
- Duran Duran at the Mayan Theatre in LA. Directed by David Lynch.
- Alicia Keys with surprise performance by Jay Z at Nokia Theater in NYC.
- My Morning Jacket at The Palace Theatre in Louisville, directed by Todd Haynes.
- Sugarland at Best Buy Theatre in NYC, directed by Kenny Ortega
As you can imagine, these special one-time shows combining A-list musicians and directors sell out their tickets almost instantly. So the AmEx Unstaged is your next (and only) option if you want to see them!
What’s the schedule?
Other than putting out press releases, it doesn’t appear American Express has a page dedicated to the Unstaged Concert Series. To stay on top of the schedule, your best bet is to follow them on Twitter @AmericanExpress and add @CreditCardForum while you’re at it, because I will Tweet updates for the upcoming Unstaged concerts.
How to get the most from it?
Even though this is put on by American Express, anyone can watch the live stream… even if they don’t have an AmEx credit card. However if you are an AmEx cardmember the experience is going to be a lot better because you get these extra features:
Customize your cameras – If you’re a non-member you only get to watch the standard feed. As a cardmember you have the ability to switch between the director’s stream and a second stream with different angles.
Interact with the band – Depending on the show you, cardmembers are given additional opportunities to interact. For example with the Arcade Fire concert, cardmembers were able to send in photos that got featured onstage during one of the songs.
These two extra benefits and a few others are only available to AmEx cardmembers. Fortunately the Unstaged concerts are free, whether you have their card or not.
