It's Been a Hard Day's Night...

I love the Beatles. So, naturally, I was excited to hear that John needed interns to help out at WHK's Beatles Tribute concert at the House of Blues on Sat. July 21. Unfortunately, I realized I had prior commitments that evening, but I could help out earlier in the day with the setup and the special live broadcast before the concert.

As I had mentioned in an earlier post, WHK Radio 1420 AM is celebrating their 85th anniversary this year; the station has been broadcasting since 1922. WHK is one of the oldest radio stations in the country! To learn more about WHK throughout the years, you can visit the following link WHK's History! Many people especially remember WHK because the station brought the Beatles to Cleveland in 1964. Check out this link! The Beatles!

Therefore, in celebration of its 85th anniversary, the station decided to hold a Beatles Tribute concert, featuring local Beatles tribute band, Hard Day's Night. The week before the concert, the other interns and I spent hours stuffing bags for the event and calling those who had won tickets to remind them about the special live broadcast. On Saturday afternoon, Andrea and I drove down to the House of Blues together. We were in charge of the setup: the VIP and tickets table, the WHK memorabilia, the sponsor's table, and the broadcast table. Also, one man was there selling pictures he took of the Beatles. The broadcast consisted of John interviewing former WHK personalities Bill "Smoochie" Gordon, Carl Reese, Bob Friend, and John Webster. Once the broadcast started, Andrea and I were in charge of handing out the tickets to those who won tickets on-air as well as handing out the VIP bags, which included T-shirts, badges, etc. At the end of the pre-concert activities, I had to leave, but I definitely wish I could have stayed!! I've seen Hard Days Night before, and the band is great :) Overall, the event was very interesting; I got to learn more about WHK's history and talk to some of the former WHK personalities.

One Busy Weekend!!

The early part of July was not that eventful (allowing me to spend some time with family and friends for the 4th of July), but the weekend of July 13th-15th was a super busy one. On Friday night, I helped out with a remote at St. John West Shore Arts Festival located on the hospital grounds. Although I had never heard of this festival before, the place was packed with people. When I arrived, I spotted Len prerecording his call-ins from his cell phone. As soon as John showed up, I assisted with the setup of the table and the sound system. Overall, this event was pretty enjoyable, and the landscape was beautiful. In addition, I got the chance to talk to Len a lot about my broadcasting experience at school; he suggested that I give him a copy of my air check/radio resume!!! (Later the following week, I handed in a copy of my radio resume; although nothing has come of it yet, Len originally had said he was looking for DJ help on the weekend...you never know what may happen in the future...)

The following day, Sat. July 14, I assisted with a remote at the Holden Arboretum. The morning was kind of slow, but it was great to get to know the morning show Info to Go guy, Mark Rein, who was there to do call-ins. This park was beautiful and also featured a special mini-train display. Also, that night was Indians Faith and Family Night at Jacob's Field, brought to you by the Fish and the Cleveland Indians!! I had been waiting for this event all summer, since I'm such a huge Indians fan!!!!!!! Andrea and I drove down together and met John at the gate. After getting our tickets, we went to listen to a player faith testimonial from Indians pitcher, Paul Byrd. His story was very inspirational and made me realize how important it is to listen to God and follow his path for us. Also, before the testimonial, I ran into another Westminster broadcast major, Chris Norris. Chris is going to be a senior next year and is lucky enough to be interning with the Indians this summer!! I was hoping to run into him while I was there, and it was such a coincidence that he happened to be helping with the speaker system for the player testimonial. Chris told me about his experience at the Jake so far; he also mentioned that his Indians music video montage would be playing on the jumbotron that night in the middle of the first inning. I was so excited to see all of his hard work. The music video looked amazing :) Be sure to check out Chris Norris's blog to see the video and learn more about his broadcasting experience http://www.chuckonorris.blogspot.com

The rest of the night was extremely fun; Andrea and I got to stay and watch the game for free. Although the Indians lost (5-6), I still had a great time. And following the game, we set up for a special post-game concert between the Jake and the Q featuring Michael Tait of DC Talk (one of my favorite Christian bands)!! Despite a little rain, the concert was a success!! Plus, I got to hear one of my DC Talk songs, In the Light!! Michael Tait is now performing with his own band, Tait, and is preparing for his new CD, Loveology, to be released this fall ; I did enjoy his own solo music as well. I think he sounded a lot like Matisyahu. Check out his band's website, Tait the band!! The weekend tired me out, so I was definitely glad to get a break that Sunday; however, I was happy and grateful for all of the opportunities I had that weekend :)

The End of June...

As the month of June came to a close, I was becoming more familiar with the work in the office as well as the normal set-up for Fish promotional events and concerts. Also, I was also getting to know more people at the office as well as in the sales department. I even filled in for the receptionist a couple of times, answering the phones and such. In addition, I was asked by the productions director Dale to voice a couple of Fish liners for promos. I thought nothing of it until a couple of days ago I was listening to the Fish and heard this promo a couple of times with multiple voices. After hearing it about the third time, I realized my voice was in there twice!! I was shocked at how my voice sounded so different!!

Anyways, I helped out with two events toward the end of June. The first was a radio remote at Cedar Point on June 29. Since the park is a bit of a drive, I got there early, taking along my brother, his friend, and one of my friends. We planned to stay there longer after I was done with my remote. For some unforeseen circumstances, I had had to run up to the station to pick up all the Fish banners, fliers, etc. Thankfully, I got to park inside the park near the marketing office, which made it easier to carry everything inside. Actually, it was cool because I got to meet one of the Cedar Point marketing managers, Bryan Edwards. I met up with John and Josh around 1:30...we set up all the equipment and the signage. Josh was broadcasting live right outside Cedar Point's new ride: the Maverick. (I didn't get to ride it because the line was too long, but I heard this new terra-coaster was very cool and definitely worth it)!! I checked back periodically to make sure Josh was doing OK, and around 6:00, we torn down everything. My friends and I stayed a little bit later; however, we were all pretty tired, so we ended up leaving earlier than we had planned.

The following morning, I helped out with another radio remote that Josh was doing at Fred Martin Superstore in Baberton. Christina, Andrea, and I ran the booth, which included the Fish prize wheel. A couple of other radio stations were there as well...it was interesting to see what they had for their remotes. One station also had a prize wheel, while the other was giving away free pizza :) Overall, the remote went well; although, our location kind of hid where we were, making our crowd flow a little less than I had hoped. So there's the rest of June...July too has been a busy, busy month which you can read about in the posts to follow!! Although I have one more side note: I was worried about getting enough intern hours, but by the end of June I was surprised to find that I already accumulated over 90 hours!!! :)

Alive Music Festival!!

The week after the U.S. Open I found myself busy as always. Tuesday and Wednesday I worked in the office in the promotions department. However, the most important event of the week was the 20th annual Christian Music Festival, the Alive Festival at Clay's Park Resort in Canal Fulton. I had never been to this festival before, but Andrea had so she explained it to me. This was a week-long festival where families could come for one day or camp the whole week while enjoying the lake, great food, inspirational speakers, and wonderful Christian music. People were able to enjoy performances from some of the top Christian artists (from all genres of Christian music) for the last four days of the festival (June 20-23). During these last four days, the promotions people and all of us interns manned the Fish inflatable booth. Believe me this thing is HUGE!!!

Unfortunately, I could only help for the first two days of the festival (since I was getting my wisdom teeth out on Friday), but my help was definitely still needed. This event had to be one of the biggest I had attended so far! On Wednesday, Christina and I ran the booth. We set out Fish fliers, Cleveland magazines, and Fish bumper stickers as well as running the "Guess the number of fish in the bowl..." prize contest (if you guessed the number correctly, you had a chance to win four Cedar Point tickets). Also, Christina and I were busy putting Fish tattoos on all the little kids. The first day went pretty smoothly. It was great to hear from and talk to dedicated Fish listeners. On Thursday, Andrea, Rick (another intern I had never met before), and I met early to set up the Fish inflatable. The previous day had worked out fine, since Greg had been there to help show us how to set it up. Well, that wasn't exactly the case on Thursday because of the strong winds!!! In the process of blowing up the inflatable, the wind blew two stakes out of the ground, causing the entire half of the inflatable to flip over!! Andrea and I were stunned. Thankfully, Rick had a tool kit in his car so we could hammer the stakes into the ground real good this time. Finally, we got the Fish inflatable up!!

Thursday went just about the same as Wednesday (except for a huge thunderstorm during which we stuffed everything into the Fish van including ourselves!). Truly, All of the people at the festival were so friendly, and I realized I really do love this music format because the people are just great!!! In fact, one guy came back to our inflatable at least a couple times each day while I was there just to talk to us and keep us company. Overall, the festival was a great experience, and the music was awesome. Some bands I had never even heard of, most likely because they played more Christian rock or even Christian metal. I do have to say I was impressed by this hard rock Christian band Flyleaf as well as one of my favorite all-girl Christian bands Barlow Girl!! Although I didn't see get to see the top artists/bands (Jeremy Camp, Relient K, Switchfoot, and Newsboys) since I had to leave early, I still loved the music and can't wait to come back next year!! :) Visit this link for more info!!! Alive Music Festival Rocks!!!

U.S. Open at Oakmont!!!!!

I've been extremely busy with my internship (and 4th of July festivities) to keep up on my blogging, so I'm going to start where I left off! The weekend of June 15-June17 was a very, very busy weekend for me. On Friday night, I baby-sat two kids that I've been baby-sitting for a long time. The following morning, I helped out at a radio remote at the Klaben Auto Store in Kent. Brooke, a morning co-host with Len, did her breaks live using her cell phone, which I thought was so simple, yet cool because for our remotes at college we used a marti system. Unfortunately, the turn-out wasn't huge (probably because it was 10-noon in the morning on Father's Day weekend), but I still had fun setting up the Fish prize wheel and talking to the listeners. However, the best was yet to come!!!

On Sunday morning, I got up early, ready for a full day of media fun :) I was lucky enough to be traveling to Oakmont Golf Course near Pittsburgh. One of the AM radio stations owned by Salem Communications was broadcasting live from the U.S. OPEN!!!! AND I got to help them out!!!!!!!! First let me explain...Salem Communications owns four radio stations in the Cleveland area: WFHM FM 95.5 the Fish, WHKW AM 1220 the Word (a Christian talk radio station), and WHK AM 1420 and WHKZ AM 1440 (both news and talk radio stations). All of these radio stations broadcast from the same office in Independence.

Anyways, 1420 AM, which is celebrating its 85th anniversary, has a golf show on Sunday evenings from 5-7 p.m. (I learned a little about WHK's history during the ride down from John)!! The DJs decided to broadcast their show live from the U.S. Open since it was only a couple of hours away from Cleveland. One of my bosses, John, and his partner Michael host the show together. John picked me up in the Fish van, and we drove down together, swapping stories during the drive. We arrived around 11:00 or so, and proceeded to the media center. Before I could do anything, I had to get a media pass/badge with my picture on it!! I got to keep it as a souvenir!! John and I found our booth inside the media center labeled Salem Broadcasting and set up our equipment. Later on, we met up with Michael and his family...and walked around the golf course so the two guys could get the feel for the course and the tournament. They took a lot of "mental" notes to help them figure out what they would talk about during their golf show. Around 4:00, we went back to the media center to get some free food and to prepare for the show. Inside the media center, flash interviews from the players could be seen as well as all kinds of info and stats, which were updated almost instantly.

During the show, my job was to collect any interview, info, and stat sheets that were published as time passed as well as get updated scores and stats from the public computers. It was AWESOME!! I loved being in the media center, meeting and seeing people from all kinds of media: radio stations, television stations, and newspapers. Our booth was two over from BBC radio!! When the golf show ended, the last two golfers, one being Tiger Woods, were still on the 17th hole, so we ran out to the golf course. The 18th hole was packed, but I got a glimpse of Tiger through the crowd. The whole crowd groaned when Tiger missed tying for first with Cabrera...John and I then stayed to watch the award ceremony (I was standing about 25 feet or so from Tiger)!! Strangely enough, I ran into another Westminster broadcast major, Danielle, who had been working at the U.S. Open all week (I think as security?). Afterward, John and I packed up our equipment and headed back home, grabbing dinner on the way. I was EXHAUSTED after a 14-hours on the job, but I had the BEST time!!! Clink on the following link to learn more about WHK AM 1420's golf show! WHK's golf show with John and Michael!!!