ESP Winner’s Circle:
“Weekend with Metallica in Vegas” Sweepstakes Winner Carrie Dumas

It was a beautiful Friday afternoon on December 4 when we left Los Angeles and made the short trip out to Las Vegas. This wasnʼt just a typical Vegas weekend, though; we were meeting Carrie Dumas, who had been the one and only grand prize winner of our “Weekend with Metallica in Vegas” sweepstakes.

Itʼs funny; sometimes when we meet a winner of one of our flyaway contests, they want to hang out with us and do everything that weʼre planning on doing. But not Carrie! Perhaps it was because we were in Vegas that Carrie and her boyfriend (whoʼd been flown there from Massachusetts) had plenty of things to go and do on her first day. After all, weʼd put them up at the luxurious Mandalay Bay hotel and casino resort. And beyond all that, it was Carrieʼs birthday the following day, so weʼre sure there was more than enough to keep them entertained. Speaking of which, we made sure Carrieʼs trip to Vegas was fun with an extra $500 spending cash.

On Saturday, we met up with Carrie and her boyfriend in the Mandalay Bay lobby, where they also got copies of Metallicaʼs latest award-winning album Death Magnetic. Then it was off to the show, with a special activity beforehand: meeting the band! Carrie was pretty excited; after all, as you can imagine, Metallica is very exclusive about spending time with fans, and itʼs only a small group of people that get to meet-and-greet with them before they rock the house. And, of course, we can never know for certain which members of the band will be available at once; youʼd probably be busy too as a member of one of the worldʼs most iconic bands.

But Carrie (and all of us) got lucky; all four members of Metallica were gracious enough to hang out with our sweepstakes winners, especially after finding out our winners were there courtesy of ESP. James and Kirk were happy to stay and pose for photos with Carrie and her boyfriend, and then it was time for the show! Our winners took off to their VIP seats, and meanwhile we ran into a crowd of other ESP artists (like the guys from Devil Driver), many of whom are huge Metallica fans as well.

As if all that werenʼt enough, when the show was done and weʼd all flown back to our respective homes, we shipped Carrie her very own ESP KH 2 Kirk Hammett signature series guitar. Itʼs going to be hard for us to ever top this amazing sweepstakes, but that wonʼt stop us from trying!

ESP and Live Nation want to once again congratulate Carrie Dumas for having won the “Weekend with Metallica in Vegas” sweepstakes. And remember: the next person in the ESP Winnerʼs Circle could be you!