Viral Video Helps High School Win Free Katy Perry Concert

A few weeks ago, we brought you a video of an entire school of enterprising high school students who came together show school spirit and put together an epic video for Katy Perry’s “Roar.” It turns out the Lakewood High School’s efforts were not in vain, as the viral video as the video was recently announced as the winner of the "'Good Morning America's 'Roar' With Katy Perry Contest.”

When we first saw the video, we wondered what would convince 2,000+ high school kids to dress in their various student group gear and show up to film a video set to Perry’s hit pop song (not everyone is so excited about "Roar," after all). However, winning something is a powerful incentive and Courtney Coddington, the Lakewood student body president who achieved the concept at the Colorado school, deserves a round of applause. The impressive video pans through the entirety of the school and features various student groups from the pep club to cheerleaders, sports teams, and more, eventually spilling out onto the lawn where everyone comes together to show their school spirit.

In a special segment on Good Morning America, the network noted that there were hundreds of videos that were turned in for the big contest. Perry went through all of the submissions and narrowed them down to five finalists, eventually choosing “Lakewood High School Lip Dub 2013 – Roar” as the big winner, noting that it was a really tough decision to make. However, the school’s spirit (and no doubt the viral status of the video) helped the video to stand out.

"Lakewood really embodied a whole school spirit. ... It was so incredibly crafted …so interesting and well done and organized. It was thousands of kids coming together to 'Roar' and that's what this competition means to me."

All of the effort put into that epic video will be repaid. Perry will head to Colorado to play a free gig for the Lakewood High School students, as the video continues to rack up hits on YouTube. The special concert will be broadcast live on Good Morning America on October 25.

Jessica Rawden
Managing Editor

Jessica Rawden is Managing Editor at CinemaBlend. She’s been kicking out news stories since 2007 and joined the full-time staff in 2014. She oversees news content, hiring and training for the site, and her areas of expertise include theme parks, rom-coms, Hallmark (particularly Christmas movie season), reality TV, celebrity interviews and primetime. She loves a good animated movie. Jessica has a Masters in Library Science degree from Indiana University, and used to be found behind a reference desk most definitely not shushing people. She now uses those skills in researching and tracking down information in very different ways.