Romanian music fest gives free tickets in exchange for blood

Romania is embracing the legend of Dracula by offering concertgoers the chance to trade blood for free tickets.

As the fabled hometown of vampire kingpin Dracula, Transylvania has pretty much become synonymous with blood (being a fanger’s preferred food and beverage). Posters feature the world’s most famous vampire with a blood donation bag.

Transylvania electronic music festival Untold is taking an ironic philanthropic route as it launches its “Pay-with-Blood” campaign.

So, using a savvy bit of geographical branding, Untold Festival organisers have chose to offer punters a whopping 30% discount on entry in exchange for a few vials of the red stuff.

“We were talking about how to incorporate Dracula into our festival and after seeing the numbers and how behind Romania was in blood donations we had this idea”, the festival’s PR manager told the Guardian.

In Romania, just 1.7 percent of the population has ever donated blood, and most did so only when a close relative or friend needed a transfusion, according to data from the National Institute of Blood Transfusion.

But it is all for a good cause: To help alleviate the blood shortage in medical centres across Romania.

The campaign is called “Pay With Blood”.

“Considering many youngsters in Romania don’t donate blood and our festival is aimed at youth they saw the opportunity”.

“The units collected in 2014 were processed to obtain about 110,000 blood products that were sent to hospitals”, Dr Gosa said.

Festival-goers who sign up to become blood donors online will receive discounts, and those who show up in person at centres in Bucharest and Cluj will be given one-day tickets on the spot.