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!!! :)