LAUNCH Acquires Cutting-Edge Lifestyle Concert Series The Warped Tour; LAUNCH Expands Influence of Online Properties With Major Offline Tour.

Business/Entertainment Editors & Internet/Music Writers

SANTA MONICA, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--June 19, 2000

LAUNCH Media Inc. (Nasdaq:LAUN) today announced its acquisition of The Warped Tour, the popular summer concert series where musicians, athletes and fans interact and participate in day-long events.

The Warped Tour blends a cross section of great music from chart-topping and emerging artists with the skate/surf culture and extreme sports. The acquisition will empower LAUNCH with the ability to deliver unique integrated sponsorship opportunities to its partners, leveraging the strategic breadth of both its online and offline properties.

Additionally, the tour will afford LAUNCH the valuable opportunity of supplementing its existing marketing efforts in reaching an elusive demographic, as well as serve as a vehicle that will undoubtedly generate a wealth of additional content. LAUNCH will maintain an on-site presence at the concerts and simultaneously take on the responsibility of promoting, marketing and selling sponsorships for the tour by leveraging key online and offline partnerships.

Additionally, the tour's official Web site, warpedtour.com (www.warpedtour.com), will become one of LAUNCH's online properties and ultimately become a comprehensive, year-round music destination for music fans and extreme sports enthusiasts. LAUNCH will leverage its database of more than 3.5 million registered users to both promote the tour and drive ticket sales.

As in previous years, Vans Inc., who joined the founders as an owner of the tour in 1996, will be this summer's title sponsor, to be billed as The Vans Warped Tour '00(TM). Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

In 1994, Creative Artists Agency, Kevin Lyman and the law firm of Codikow, Carrol, Guido and Groffman formed the tour to become a major lifestyle event. That existing team will continue to oversee booking, production and creative aspects of the tour. Establishing itself as the longest-running rock music festival in the last 10 years, it has historically recruited artists such as Limp Bizkit, Sugar Ray, Kid Rock and Sublime to perform in the series.

The tour has enlisted sponsorships from Tombstone Pizza, Sony Electronics, Transworld Publications, Volcom, Epitaph and Hurley International, among numerous other sport and music companies for the 2000 tour.

The Vans Warped Tour appeals to music fans and teens interested in punk, alternative, hip-hop, ska and extreme sports. LAUNCH plans to sell a wide range of sponsorships for both the online and offline components of the Warped tour franchise, providing partners with the vehicle to reach this very influential yet sensitive teen demographic.

LAUNCH advertisers Mars Inc.'s Starburst and Gillette's new product, Right Guard Extreme (RGX), have confirmed for this year's tour joining ESPN X-Games, Jones Soda and Kraft Foods, among others.

LAUNCH will upgrade and broaden warpedtour.com's content by creating a year-round lifestyle destination that not only promotes the concerts but also provides information on bands, extreme sports and other exciting youth-oriented activities. Warpedtour.com will remain a stand-alone destination, but will be closely connected to LAUNCH.com with content sharing and contextual integration.

In addition, LAUNCH plans to drive ticket sales to the tour through strategic direct marketing initiatives to the LAUNCH.com database of more than 3.5 million registered music fans. With strong online marketing coupled with an on-site presence at the shows, LAUNCH hopes to generate new fans and increase traffic for both Web sites.

"This is a very exciting time for LAUNCH, and we look forward to producing a great concert-going experience for music and sports fans alike," said Dave Goldberg, CEO of LAUNCH. "The mentality behind the Warped Tour has always been to serve as a platform to discover and promote new artists and that is precisely the philosophy upon which we founded LAUNCH.

"The acquisition of this successful music tour is an organic fit that will help bring synergy to our online efforts and will undoubtedly strengthen our offline branding efforts as well, generating new LAUNCH.com users and revenues."

"By combining forces with LAUNCH.com, I hope to capitalize on their technologies so we can continue to break bands and expand the Warped lifestyle in a more significant way," said Kevin Lyman, founder of The Warped Tour.

Gary H. Schoenfeld, president and chief executive officer of Vans, commented: "Over the past five years The Vans Warped Tour(TM) has been a great combination of core sports and music with over 2 million attendees worldwide. LAUNCH now brings a great online dimension, and we are delighted to have this new association."

The Vans Warped Tour has officially announced its sixth season line-up with participating bands including Green Day, The Mighty Mighty Bosstones, The Long Beach Dub Allstars and athletes Steve Caballero, Mike Frazier, Rick Thorne and many more. For six weeks beginning, June 23, The Vans Warped Tour will play 39 concert dates in various North America cities.

LAUNCH.com currently provides visitors with a wide selection of streaming audio, the Web's largest collection of music videos, concert listings, exclusive artist features and chats covering all genres of music.

About CAA 

Founded in 1975, Creative Artists Agency represents many of the most creative and successful artists in film, television and music. CAA also provides a range of strategic consulting services to corporate clients. In September 1999, CAA established a partnership with New York-based Shepardson, Stern and Kaminsky (SS+K), a communications consulting and advertising agency.

About 4 fini inc.

4 fini inc. is a full-service production company. 4 fini inc. was started by music industry leader Kevin Lyman. Lyman comes from an extensive background working with internationally known bands like Jane's Addiction, Stone Temple Pilots and Nine Inch Nails, and is experienced in numerous entertainment industry jobs including booking, tour pre-production, production management, band management, record label owner, tour originator and industry consultant.

About Codikow, Carroll, Guido & Groffman ("CCGG")

CCGG have offices in Los Angeles and New York and represent prominent clients in music and music related technology industries. CCGG provides a wide range of legal and consulting services for recording artists, producers, songwriters, record labels and entertainment-related technology companies.

About Vans Inc.

Vans Inc. is a leading branded lifestyle company for the youth market. Vans reaches its 10-to-24 year-old target consumers through the sponsorship of Core Sports(TM), such as skateboarding, snowboarding, surfing and wakeboarding, and through major entertainment events and venues, such as the VANS Triple Crown(TM) Series, the VANS Warped Tour(TM), the VANS World Amateur Skateboarding Championships, the world's largest VANS skateparks and the VANS High Cascade Snowboard Camp(TM), located on Mt. Hood.

The company operates 131 retail stores in the United States and Europe, and designs, markets and distributes active-casual footwear, clothing and accessories, performance footwear for Core Sports(TM), snowboard boots, step-in snowboard boot bindings and outerwear worldwide. Vans' Internet address is www.vans.com.

About LAUNCH

With headquarters in Santa Monica, LAUNCH Media Inc. is a media company dedicated to creating the premier Internet music site, LAUNCH.com, by providing music fans with the broadest array of music and music-related editorial content. LAUNCH.com houses the Web's largest music video collection, available streamed on-demand or in pre-programmed channel formats.

Additionally, LAUNCH.com offers music customization with LAUNCHcast, an intelligent music service that enables members to design their own streaming music station with high-quality audio or video.

LAUNCH is engaged in strategic relationships with Sony Music, EMI Music, Warner Music Group, AOL, Microsoft, NBCi, Intel, RealNetworks, NetZero, Yahoo!, Yahoo! Japan, Tokyo Broadcasting System, SOFTBANK Ventures, CheckOut.com, Road Runner and others.

This announcement contains forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties including, among others, LAUNCH Media Inc.'s operating history, anticipated loss, the unpredictability of its future revenues, competition, risks associated with management of potential growth, and risks of new business areas, international expansion, business combinations, and strategic alliances. Actual results could differ materially from those discussed. More information about factors that potentially could affect LAUNCH's financial results are included in the company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including its Form 10-K filed Dec. 31, 1999, as amended, each available online at http://www.sec.gov. All forward-looking statements are based on information available to the company on the date hereof, and the company assumes no obligation to update such statements.