Genre Reality television | ||
Gold Rush was a 2006 reality competition created by Mark Burnett and AOL and hosted by Mark Steines. The format was of an internet scavenger hunt that is offering chances to win $US50,000, $100,000 and $1,000,000.
Gold Rush consisted of 13 rounds of game play. In order to qualify for a chance to win, participants had to correctly complete a series of tasks on AOL.com’s Gold Rush hub in order to stockpile virtual gold bars. Many of these tasks consisted of pop culture trivia challenges. Clues to help solve each of the challenges could be found in CBS Television programs and commercials, magazines, radio, song lyrics, and on AOL.
In each round, the first three players who completed the challenges and collected 12 virtual gold bars were taken to a location somewhere in the United States where they competed on-camera in a head-to-head, reality-style competition (the "Gold Competition") for a chance to win $100,000 in gold. In the Finale Round of Gold Rush, the 12 previous $100,000 winners returned, joined by 6 new contestants, to vie for the $1 million grand prize.
Various companies signed on as partners of Gold Rush. Each company’s brand was integrated into various parts of Gold Rush, including game clues and challenges throughout the game.
In a November 2006 interview, Burnett discussed created a second round of Gold Rush, but it did not come to fruition.