Ever see one of those big Playstation gaming semi trucks pull up and park at one of your local retailers or local event? That would be what the folks at Sony call “The Playstation Experience”/”The Playstation Patrol”. (Seems the “Experience” goes to concerts & events, while the “Patrol” goes to the retailers - same function, 2 different names. Whoopee.) While Sony has yet to get off their behinds and actually update their website with information, they do have a sister site dedicated to their latest promotional contest; Take the Stage with Rock Band!

The folks at the official Rock Band website are also working on getting details out there for the masses, but the basics are as follows:

• Get yourself and your Rock Band partners together (up to 4 members total per band) and find one of these Playstation trucks.
• Enter/register on site for the contest. (Everyone must be 18 years or older)
• Rock out! Your band WILL be filmed so that your video will be viewable to all on the contest leaderboards.
• Get a high enough score to remain at the top of the leaderboards until the contest period is over. (September 14, 2008)

And the bad news, at least for my “employers” here, is that Florida residents are ineligible to participate. (WTF, right? - Don’t kill the messenger!) All the official rules and disclaimers can be found here.

The Grand Prize winning band will be flown to a live event (undisclosed at this time) where they will “perform” on stage at the event’s opening! (Hope it doesn’t turn out to be the opening of a new Wal-Mart or something) Transportation & hotel are included. The Grand Prize winners will each also receive a Rock Band bundle! (PS3 version, obviously) All participants in the second place band will receive 40GB PS3 systems along with Rock Band bundles. Lastly, the third place members will all receive Rock Band bundles.

Winners are based on high score, so I suggest you get a full 4 person band, and perform a difficult song very well on Expert. Green Grass and High Tides anyone? Again, we don’t have any official schedule at this time, since neither Sony or Harmonix have made it available yet. Though we do know that the promotion started 2 weeks ago on 5/16, and ends on 9/14. As soon as we get the schedule, we’ll be sure to post it here.