The Dixie Bee-Liners have created a clever promotion for their summer ‘09 tour dates. They are combining America’s love for their portable communication devices with bluegrass music to offer their fans a chance to win some cool prizes.

The Bee-Liners have dubbed their June show dates as the Textual Activity Tour, and will post a special buzzword online each day. The first five fans who text in the buzzword will get free passes to the next show on the tour, and be entered to win a free Blackberry as well.

Bee-Liner Brandi Hart explains how the whole thing got started…

“We’re very excited about the Textual Activity Tour, and we encourage bluegrass fans from all over the U.S. to participate.  The idea for the tour actually started at an in-studio appearance on Nashville Public Radio with Dave Higgs.  We had just finished recording, and our fiddler, Rachel Johnson, was text-messaging on her cell-phone.  Then our guitarist, Jonathan Maness, made a joke about being ‘textually active.’ Later on, I thought about doing a ‘Textual Activity’ tour… and the rest, as they say, is history.

I wanted the tour to be something which all of our fans could participate in — even if they didn’t live where we were touring.  With the text-in promotion, fans anywhere in the U.S. can text-message us to be entered to win the Grand Prize, a Free BlackBerry¬Æ Pearl 8130TM smartphone. The first five fans to text in (who hopefully live within driving distance) will be awarded free tickets to the following day’s show, plus a VIP concert badge and free gift.  The V.I.P. winners must attend the show to collect their prizes, however.”

You can see all the contest details on the band’s web site, where the daily buzzword will also be posted. They will post the secret word on MySpace, Face Book and Twitter as well.

Brandi also mentioned that their next CD, Susanville, is about to be mastered, and that she is finishing up the artwork now.

“It’s coming along nicely, and we can’t wait to get it out into the world!”