• by Laurie Sullivan  @lauriesullivan, October 16, 2007

Nokia Theater L.A. Live, a Los Angeles music venue sponsored by the Finnish company, will open Thursday night with high-tech interactive marketing promotions throughout the lobby, and Eagles and Dixie Chicks on stage.

The $100 million state-of-the-art acoustics and wireless venue seats 7,100 concert-goers. When Club Nokia opens at the complex in September 2008, it will seat 2,000 patrons and have a rooftop observation deck.

The Nokia Theater L.A. Live venue will host the American Music Awards mid-November, and discussions are underway with the Recording Academy for the Grammys, which are now held in the adjacent Staples Center owned by management company AEG.

"Music is a key marketing strategy for us," says Candace Netzer, senior marketing manager at Nokia, who is spearheading the project. "Talking with consumers about music on mobile devices is one reason we engaged in the sponsorships."

For Nokia, sponsoring music venues like those in Los Angeles, New York and Dallas makes sense. The strategy ties into the mobile handset maker's Internet services brand known as Ovi--a portal where consumers gain access to digital content, such as maps, games and music through N-Gage and Nokia Music store. The Internet service initially launches in Europe, and later in the U.S.

Consumers will get a close look at Nokia's 72 cellular phones and multimedia devices that store and play music and videos, as they will be on display inside Nokia Theater L.A. Live. On-site staff will demonstrate devices and applications, providing hands-on instructions.

Consumers can interact with Nokia promotions from their own phones, too. In the theater, signs instruct patrons to turn on Bluetooth options and set phones to "discoverable," or to send the word "Nokia" to a short code through SMS in order to download graphics, wallpaper and ringtones.

Los Angeles-based marketing company ipsh developed the mobile applications that allow consumers to download the music-related content. The promotions work across any U.S. carrier, including AT&T, Sprint Nextel, T-Mobile and Verizon.

Bryon Morrison, president of Omnicom's ipsh, says marketing promotions available on Thursday night during the pre-event highlight the Nokia N800 Web tablet with an Internet-based DJ song-request application, drink-ordering system and trivia games. VIPs will get badges with embedded short wave near-field communications (NFC) technology that identifies them on arrival to personally greet them by name.

Nokia staff will take pictures and print them via Bluetooth for concert-goers to take home as a keepsake. "We'll likely have an MMS promotion that lets people take a photo with their camera phone and post it on a large monitor inside the theater," Nokia's Netzer says.

Since interactive experiences connect consumers with brands, U.K.-based mobile marketing company Smartfusion has developed a street promotion for opening night. Marketing street teams armed with Nokia N95 cellular camera phones and video screens plan to walk the venue, interacting with the crowd. One will take videos with the camera phone and transmit the movies via Bluetooth to the screen the other wears as a backpack.

Other marketing firms and ad agencies helping to launch the Nokia Theater L.A. Live venue include TracyLocke in Dallas and Wasserman Media Group in Raleigh, N.C.