Site News & Announcements

U2Fanz.com T-Shirts?

Along with the new U2FANZ.com button-badges, I'm also very keen to get a U2FANZ.com t-shirt into production ASAP (in time for the upcoming tour). T-shirts would probably be the best form of visual identification of U2FANZ.com members. They'd also be a fantastic way to promote this website.

Over the last few weeks, I've had various discussions about how best to approach the production of U2FANZ.com t-shirts to (A) keep costs to a minimum and (B) make sure that we're not infringing any copyrights to do with any of U2's artwork and/or the tour itself.

The best way to avoid issues with the latter is to simply avoid using words and/or phrases that might suggest any affiliation with the tour. Basically, as long as we don't print "U2 360" / "360" / "tour" (or any combination of) on the shirts, there won't be any problems.

As far as artwork is concerned, it's a bit of a grey area (pardon the pun!). I'd love to try and push the boundaries a bit and see what we can get away with but, at the end of the day, I simply can't afford to go into battle with Universal and/or even the band themselves (we don't want to upset Larry, now do we?!).

Right up until today, I was hoping to use exactly the same design as our button badges and have it printed on the back of the shirts... which would have looked something like this:

However, after doing a bit of research on copyright and licencing, I've decided that it would be too risky to use that particular design. Shame, really, cos I'd ideally want to use the U2 FANZ logo as it appears in the header of this website (one could perhaps argue that the layout has been altered enough from the original to make it more like our own but, as I say, I don't want to deal with the repercussions of upsetting the record company!)

Therefore, I've somewhat simplified the overall design and come up with this:

It's not nearly as interesting as the previous version (IMHO) but it will suffice. I dropped out the little icons not because of any potential copyright issues (they're our own images) but because there's simply not enough room for them any more. That said, they'll now be visible on the front of the shirt, along with the URL of the site! Here's the design I'd like to use across the chest of the shirt:

So, what does everyone think? Like it, or hate it? Would you be interested in purchasing a U2FANZ.com t-shirt as per this design? Let us know by answering the attached poll!

As far as costs are concerned, I have no idea at this stage but I would see $35 NZD per shirt as the upper limit of what I would ask people to pay (especially given that it's not an official U2 shirt!). Ideally, I'd like to keep it to under $30 NZD (and a slight discount available to Premium members) but that depends on who would print the shirts, how much the set-up costs are, and how many shirts we have printed. If we get them screen-printed, the more shirts we have made, the lower the costs will be. We're also looking at options with online digital printing services.

Will update the situation with these shirts ASAP! Time is running out!!

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U2Fanz.com Button Badges Now Available To Order

I'd like to announce the availability of U2FANZ.com button badges, as per the following design!

These are an update to the badges that were previously available during our U2NewZooland.com days. Our U2//NZ badges were popular in the lead-up to the Vertigo Tour to NZ.

Purchasing a U2FANZ.com button badge is a great way to support this site, as a small percentage of each sale will help offset the costs of running the site. By displaying a U2FANZ.com badge during the upcoming 360 Tour, you'll also be promoting the site and helping to keep it active. Most importantly, though, these badges will be a great way for U2FANZ.com members to spot each other in and around the concert venues (and at the local Irish pub)!

The new badges are available in the same two sizes as the previous U2//NZ ones. These are 38mm (4cm approx) and 57mm (6cm approx). You'll get a reasonably accurate idea of these sizes if you print out the following image:

The cost of a 38mm badge is $4.00 (NZD) and a 57mm badge is $5.00 (NZD). If you purchase two or more badges of the same size, you will receive a slight discount as per below:

1 38mm $4.00 57mm $5.00
2+ 38mm $3.50 57mm $4.50
5+ 38mm $3.30 57mm $4.30

I'm pleased to offer an additional discount to our Premium members! If you are a Premium member, you can use these prices instead!:

1 38mm $3.50 57mm $4.50
2+ 38mm $3.00 57mm $4.00
5+ 38mm $2.80 57mm $3.80

(All prices are in New Zealand dollars (NZD). Please note that postage is ADDITIONAL!)

If you're currently a Standard member and you've ever considered upgrading to Premium membership (which is the primary way that we raise funds to keep this site online), then now is a good time! Take a look at our new "Premium Plus" membership option. For just an additional $3 (i.e., $15 total), you will receive one U2FANZ.com badge delivered free to your door (NB: Australia and NZ only)! The extra $3 will go towards P&P costs, which effectively means you'll get a free badge when you join!

How To Order

If you'd like to place an order, simply send me a PM with something like "Button badges" in the subject line. Please indicate the number of badges that you require and their size/s, plus your full postal address. I'll then reply to your message with a final cost (including postage) and information about how to make payment.

The U2FANZ.com button badges are the first of (hopefully) a few different merchandising options that will be available in the future. The next thing I'm hoping to have available is U2FANZ.com t-shirts, which should be a hot item for the 360 Tour Down Under (if we can get them done in time)! These may or may not look exactly like the button badges, depending on possible copyright issues. More news on this front will hopefully follow in the next few days (fingers crossed!).

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U2 Ticket Traders Forum - Avoid The Scalpers!

The U2FANZ.com U2 Ticket Traders forum is now open for the U2 360 tour of Australia and New Zealand.

The Ticket Traders forum is for buying, selling or swapping U2 concert tickets at face value only!

Tell your friends about it - let's get the word out there and let people know there's a better way than dealing with scalpers.

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Aussie And Kiwi U2 Fans Unite - U2Fanz.com Is Here!

In anticipation of an official announcement of a U2 concert tour Down Under later this year (or early 2011), we are pleased to finally bring to you a website that caters specifically to U2 fans from Australia and New Zealand.

U2FANZ.com is the result of a rebranding and redevelopment of U2NewZooland.com, with the help of the team from the former Australian U2 forum known as Lypton Village. Aussie and Kiwi U2 fans are now able to gather as one community under the same roof.

Of course, you don't necessarily have to be from Australia or New Zealand to be a member of U2FANZ.com. We're here for all U2 fans from all over the world!

We realise that there are many other U2 fan sites catering to the masses. Sometimes, however, fan-based websites can get so big it's hard to filter out the stuff that you're not interested in. We want to provide a place where "U2 fanz" can more easily share U2 news and views that are relevant to our own corner of the world.

The technology behind U2FANZ.com will enable all members of the site to easily share any breaking U2 news with other fans around Australasia and the rest of the world. Posts made to the U2FANZ Forums can instantly be shared by other members via social networks like Facebook, Twitter and Digg (etc.), or sent via email. Selected posts can also be "promoted" to our front page by our admin team, making the information instantly available to casual visitors to the site.

While we get established over the coming weeks and months, we will do our best to expand on the features that are currently available and create more content that is of interest to Australasian U2 fans. We apologise if U2FANZ.com looks a bit rough around the edges for now but we'll be continually working to improve the user experience.

Here's hoping for a U2 tour to Australia and New Zealand next summer!

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Twittering U2Fanz.com

As a follow-up to our previous announcement about the upcoming rebranding of this website, I'd like to let everyone know that you can now follow progress on Twitter!

@u2fanz

All going according to plan, U2FANZ.com will go live sometime during the first week of June.

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Major Changes Ahead For U2Newzooland.com

This website has evolved through various stages of its existence over the years (albeit somewhat slowly!), having originally started as "This Burning Desire" way back in October 1998. Five years later, on 31st August 2003, TBD was re-launched as U2NewZooland.com.

Across the ditch in Australia, Amanda Gilligan has been managing a U2 news blog and forum known as Lypton Village, which has been online for the last few years. While not strictly a U2-only website like U2//NZ, Lypton Village has been extremely beneficial to Australian U2 fans who have wanted to keep up-to-date with the latest U2 news relevant to their own country.

More often than not, however, their U2 news has also been our U2 news and vice-versa (although the Aussies did get one over us with the Popmart Tour!). U2 New Zooland and Lypton Village are, essentially, catering to the same group of U2 fans in this part of the world. Not surprisingly, we have some Aussie U2 fans registered here on these forums and, conversely, some Kiwi U2 fans have registered on Lypton Village (and a few are actually registered to both).

Amanda and I have recently started to ponder the future of both of our websites. Our enthusiasm for forever chasing U2 news stories relevant to U2 fans in Australasia has somewhat waned and we haven't been committing nearly as much time to our sites as we used to. In fact, Amanda has all but walked away from Lypton Village due to personal time constraints and the fact that she will soon be relocating to Canada.

As far as U2 New Zooland is concerned, we've been very fortunate to have Scarla working tirelessly behind the scenes to help keep things ticking over. Without her help and encouragement, U2//NZ would have fallen over soon after the Vertigo Tour, such were the demands placed on us before and during the tour.

My enthusiasm took another major hit when U2 New Zooland was hacked several times last year. I spent hours and hours trying to get to the bottom of the security breach...and failed! My web hosting company eventually lost their patience with me, cancelled my account and banned the U2NewZooland.com domain. The joys of being a website owner!

Fortunately, however, I managed to relocate U2//NZ to a new web host and reinstall the site from backups. Since then, Scarla and I have been able to keep these forums reasonably active, which has been our priority over any other part of the site. The downside to that is that the rest of the site (including the front page) has been somewhat neglected in recent times. A flow-on effect of that is that we're now getting less and less traffic through the site, which has further knocked my enthusiasm recently; it's hard to justify putting time into a fan-based website that, essentially, is catering to no more than about 30-40 people regular visitors.

Amanda Gilligan and I have both come to the same conclusion recently; that our sites are dying a very slow death and that something needs to be done to rekindle our interest before they both go the way of the dodo.

Now for the good news!...

Last week, I put a proposal forward to Amanda that we should perhaps look at merging our two sites together into a completely new website (and accompanying forum) to cater for U2 fans from Australia and New Zealand. As I said to Amanda, it would be a shame if we didn't have something available for local U2 fans when the 360 Tour comes Down Under next year.

My hope is that a combined website for all U2 fans from Australia and New Zealand would lead to increased traffic and membership... and that maintaining it would no longer seem like such a waste of time and effort. If we are able to get more U2 fans together into a combined site, then it will keep everyone a lot more interested.

Fortunately, Amanda agreed that merging our sites is the logical step to take and we are already in the process of making it happen.

My original proposal was to merge both of our forums, retaining all existing topics/posts and, most importantly, members (across both forums). Even though this would be technically possible, it's now apparent that there isn't really enough U2-specific content within the Lypton Village forums to warrant a complete import into these forums. Besides, that's something that's beyond my level of expertise and it would cost USD$120 to get it done commercially.

So, our current way of thinking is that we would retain the U2 New Zooland Forums as they are, but re-brand them and relocate them to a new domain. We'd then simply send out an invitation to members of Lypton Village and hope they would be interested in re-registering with the new site.

As far as a new domain name is concerned, Amanda, Scarla and I have discussed a couple of options and, at this stage, we have pretty much settled on our favourite one. Exactly what that is, though, we're not actually going to say yet because we'd be very interested to see if anyone else can think of anything better!! So, there's a challenge for you all (all 32 of you! )

Other than that, it should be said that we'd love some feedback about this proposal. Love the idea, or hate it? Please let us know!

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