Van Halen 1984 MTV Lost Weekend Documentary Premiered At Tribeca Film Festival

1984’s MTV Lost Weekend with Van Halen contest was recently given the short-format documentary treatment, and has surfaced at New York’s Tribeca Festival.

The 14-minute documentary “Lost Weekend” is directed by Bradford Thomason and Brett Whitcomb, and details the story of Kurt Jefferis, a 20-year old lad from Phoenixville, Pennsylvania. He was drafted, amidst a million other entries, to be chosen for a concert weekend with the then notorious Van Halen. The contest allowed the winner to take with him whoever he wanted to be with. Jefferis was offered by a multitude of hardcore Van Halen fans, who offered him money, vehicles, even their bodies (lady fans would do anything back then), for that one and only coveted spot. Jefferis came  upon a decision and brought his bestfriend and fellow Van Halen fan Tom Winnick. The offers then turned into requests of Van Halen souvenirs and relics, with one particularly bizarre detail about a request for David Lee Roth’s pubes.

Kurt Jefferis’ win was an auspicious one. He’d only sent eight postcard entries initially, but some internal persuading brought him to submit some more. It was then when he won, that a staffer from the MTV contest revealed his winning ticket to come from the second batch of postcards he decided to follow up on.

“You’ll have no idea where you are, where you’re going, and probably, no memory of it after you go, but it’ll be the whole weekend.” said David Lee Roth, Van Halen’s iconic frontman, for the promotion of the MTV and Van Halen collaboration promo.

While the weekend with Van Halen might seem priceless enough, MTV was gracious enough to provide $1,000 USD, a portable video recorder, and an Atari game console.

“Lost Weekend” premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival on the 27th of April, and will have a list of screenings for the week.

https://youtu.be/OGdDTsQEc4g