Gettin’ Slightly Blazed With Snoop & Stoopid

Producer Creston Thornton had a brainstorm while sitting in Cabo San Lucas swimming pool a couple of years ago while out on tour with Slightly Stoopid and 311 – bring the pool to the concert. And the tiki bar. And some eye candy.

With that in mind, his “Blazed & Confused” tour featuring Snoop Dogg, Slightly Stoopid with help from Stephen Marley and Mickey Avalon kicks off at the Star of the Desert arena near Las Vegas Friday, July 10 for the first of 20 shows in 30 days, with pool, tiki bar and babes – of both genders – in tow.

Photo: AP Photo
9th Annual BET Awards, Los Angeles, Calif.

And really, who says “blazed and confused” better than Snoop Dogg and Slightly Stoopid?

“We’re coming in every available area and building a 16 x 16 x 4-foot riser that has an area in the middle for a sunken, blowup pool and we have a tiki bar and bamboo around it,” Thornton said of his traveling pool party.

Sponsored by Oliphant vodka and locally promoted in each city, the tour comes complete with its own ambience provided by bartenders and poolside fans chosen in an online contest at CTT Tours’ Web site.

Thornton, who co-founded Bravo Entertainment before selling his stake in the company, described Blazed & Confused as “a Warped Tour for grownups.

“We’re really trying to put together a tour that’s the biggest party of the summer for that older audience that used to go to Warped and now maybe wants a really cool mixture of reggae, rock and rap,” Thornton told Pollstar. “We’re going out there to have a good time with the pool, the bar and winners online and really use the new technologies.”

Ten online contest winners – two bartenders and eight pool partiers decked out in Oliphant T-shirts – are being chosen in each city in a viral marketing campaign. Thornton hopes the campaign and tour are successful enough to make Blazed & Confused an annual caravan.

“In just June, we’ve gotten more than 261,000 hits on the Web site and we have people uploading their pictures, people voting on them and then shooting out e-mails to them and their friends that vote for them. It helps virally sell tickets,” Thornton explained.

“In each city we pick 10 winners, two of them being the bartender on the side stage and eight of them being girls in Oliphant T-shirts. They get to put their feet in the pool and just hang out. That’s a true V.I.P. in my mind.”

The smokin’ outing hits mostly sheds including Verizon Wireless Amphitre in Irvine, Calif. (July 11); Red Rocks in Morrison, Colo. (July 15); Gorge Amphitheatre in George, Wash. (July 18); Shoreline Amphitheatre in Mountain View, Calif. (July 24), and Cricket Wireless Amphitheatre near San Diego July 25.

Click here for CTT Tours’ Web site.