On Sunday, March 15th, 1998, The Backstreet Boys, together with other renown musical acts
such as 'N Sync, Lyte Funkie Ones, Solid Harmonie, 95 South, Vanilla Ice and 12 other Orlando
based bands raised over $245,000 for tornado relief efforts.

The concert was held for almost 9,000 screaming people in the parking lot of the Hard Rock Café
at Universal Studios, under a blazing heat for nearly 4 hours. 

The live cybercast broadcast via www.cybervenue.com was a huge success.
WWW.LiveConcerts.com reported over 27,000 users viewed the concert (a record high) with
estimates of 2-3 times that number worldwide. The live chat session hosted was also a blowout
success, with over 2,300 individual users entering the chat room over a three-hour period (more
than double the Super Bowl). At any given time there were at least 500 users actively chatting and
thousands more waitig to chat with the Boys and other perfoming artists. There were users signed
on from all over Europe and Asia and other unique locations such as Croatia, Slovakia, Chile,
Malaysia, Kuwait, Hong Kong, Israel, Thailand, Taiwan, South Africa, Singapore, Denmark
Norway, Ireland and many many more. 

Aside from one incredibly memorable show, a number of other efforts were made to raise money.
Event T-shirts were sold for $10 each. Raffle sales and a silent auction have made up much of the
donations as well. The grand prize for the raffle was a lunch date with Howie Dorough from the
Backstreet Boys. $2000 was raised in the raffle alone. 

One of the silent auction items was for another lunch date with Howie Dorough. By the end of the
day, the highest bid was for $5500. Just as the number was written down, another woman
grabbed the clipboard and wrote down $5501. At which point, the lady that wrote down $5500,
took the clipboard and tapped the second lady over the head with it. Backstreet Manager Donna
Wright, seeing this occur, asked what the problem was. Then, just to raise even more money, she
decided that they both should have lunch with Howie, and only for $5000 each. So, a total of
$12000 was raised, and Howie now has 3 good meals when he comes home. 

To perpetuate the efforts that the benefit concert has made, an online Internet auction will begin
on March 29, 1998, and close April 5, 1998. Donated items from all participants will be auctioned
off. Additional auction material has been donated from a wide variety of people including an
autographed and original "Happy Days" script autographed by it's original owner "Fonzie" himself
Henry Wrinkler. Other material has been donated by other stars such as Arnold Schwartznegger
and other celebrities.