Last Monday, it was game day- serious business. My wonderful group were all prepared and ready- Natalie had printed off a billion run sheets so that we could all have one and follow along. Her extreme organisation almost transformed her into the Leslie Knope of the group, as she exclaimed herself.
Whilst we were relatively calm, a few little hiccups seemed to try and tip us up. The first of these was coming to the realisation that we were not in Studio 3, our usual studio for recording demos, rehearsing and the studio in which we were trained in. We thought there would be time for us to set up and relax into the Studio 3 vibe- preload our audio material, test it would play and also practice the sponsorship announcement scheduling. Which leads us to the next hiccup. Being in Studio 2 not only meant that we were rushed for time with preloading everything into the computer, but we also discovered that the sponsorship announcement program had, what Archie called ‘the gremlins’ living inside of it (side note: I do understand that there were no literal gremlins inside the computer). This meant that every time Sally went to play a sponsorship, it would play up, then be delayed and hence, a wonderful amount of dead air was spun into the radio waves. Luckily, the wonderful RRR team came to our rescue and helped us to rectify the computer and exterminate the gremlins. The third hiccup was only minor, but we had a mini panic that our live interviewee was lost and not going to make it on time. Fortunately, his lateness was not too late.
Apart from these hiccups, and some instances of dead air, I was really proud of my group’s efforts. I wasn’t easy trying to organise a show in between 2 public holiday weekends- but we managed to do it, even if it meant we had 2 pre-recorded interviews.
One of the most rewarding things that came out of the show going to air was the fact that after the Melbourne Period Project interview aired (the interview conducted by me int he week before our show went to air), I had a caller contact the station in order to gain more information on how she could get involved with the charity. It was a lovely reminder of the power of radio, and the wonderful opportunity that we have been given by being involved with RWAV.
I thoroughly enjoyed my role as Social Media Manager for the show. Whilst it was limiting that there were only two platforms to manage (the website and Twitter), I was really able to go all out and post quite regularly. With Twitter, I tweeted reminder posts that alerted audiences to our show time and date. I also posted photos before we went on air, and after each interview went to air. This acted as not only a way for the Twitter audience to interact with the show if they were unable to tune in, but more importantly it acted as a visual accompaniment to the radio broadcast whilst also acting as a means of cross-marketing promotion with the interviewees, by @tagging them in the Tweet and allowing them to retweet it to their personal audiences.
The website is now decked out with a synopsis of each interview, details of the crew and the list of songs in which we played.
Overall, I think whilst there were some issues with our broadcast, our behind the scenes mechanisms including both the social media channels as well as the pre-show preparation allowed us to overcome these issues in a professional manner, and present the RRR audience with a somewhat professional broadcast.
If you wish to listen to the show, you can her a copy of the broadcast on my personal SoundCloud
indieindi 