Alpha Broadcasting President/COO Bob Proffitt today announced a partnership with Bing at the grand opening of its new state-of-the-art Live Performance Lounge at the Pac West Center, now officially called The Bing Lounge. At a press conference from The Bing Lounge, Proffitt unveiled the new venue and line-up of artists for the debut week with Danielle Tiedt, General Manager of Marketing for Bing at Microsoft. First to take the stage today is Columbia Records recording artists, Five for Fighting. Following on, Wednesday (Aug. 25) will be Melissa Etheridge, Crowded House on Thursday (Aug. 26) and the Doobie Brothers on Friday (Aug. 27).

The Bing Lounge is a replacement for the KINK Live Performance Lounge, a popular and intimate venue at KINK-FM radio’s old offices. Alpha Broadcasting, which operates KINK and a number of other Rose City radio stations, recently moved to the downtown Pacwest Center, 1211 SW Fifth Ave., and hence is opening a new concert venue there.

“KINK-FM has been on the forefront of the Live Performance Lounge for the last 15 years and has solidified a reputation for getting everyone from the most established artists to those bands just emerging on the scene,” Bob Proffitt, president and COO of Alpha Broadcasting, said in an announcement. “The bar has been set high and when we saw the opportunity to build a state-of-the-art performance lounge in the Pacwest Center, we jumped at the chance.”

The concerts there will be invitation-only; the venue’s capacity is just 164 people. It’s essentially where KINK and other Alpha stations will host live radio sessions. But there’s a twist: Performances will be taped and uploaded a day later to Bing Entertainment’s video channel, where anyone can watch them.

This year, the Bing Lounge is expected to host about 80 performances from national acts, Danielle Tiedt, general manager for Bing marketing, wrote in a blog post Tuesday. It also will host a medical-speakers series with Oregon Health and Science University, a business decision-making speech series, and interviews with athletes and sports teams, Microsoft said.

In other Portland-related Bing news, today Microsoft also released a new Bing Maps application called “Food Cart Finder.” It locates and details more than 250 food carts in the Portland area