So it's the day of our 'Getting Arty in Aintree event'. The event has been regularly advertised on BBC Radio Merseyside in the lead up to the event and Helen and we hope this will have generated some interest from listeners. We arrive at Aintree University Hospital with all the relevant broadcasting equipment and set up in our designated area in the hospital.
We arrive a few hours prior to the event starting which allows us time to set up the room, including craft tables, art materials and our pull up banners. For all 'Up For Arts' events, we display BBC Radio Merseyside and 'Up for Arts' banners to ensure that we are branding the event and that people are aware that they are attending a BBC Radio Merseyside event.
As the event begins, we initially gain a lot of interest from hospital staff who are keen to participate and contirbute to what will finally become a piece of artwork displayed within the hospital. PARTIA (Promoting Art in Aintree) have already commisioned many pieces of artwork throughout the hospital and this helps to create a warm and welcoming environment for patients, staff and visitors. As the day progresses, many patients and visitors also attend to create their 'leaf' and there is a friendly and welcoming atmosphere throughout the day.
My primary role at this event is to meet and greet people, take photographs and ensure that partcipants help us to improve future events by taking a few minutes to fill out a participation / feedback form.
There were also live broadcasts each hour to both the Roger Phillips and Billy Butler shows and it was my responsibility to ensure that the ambient noise in the room was suitable for a live broadcast to take place. Typically this involved informing participants already in the room that a live broadcast was about to take place and advising staff in adjoining areas. For most of the broadcasts, noise was not necessarilly an issue, however there were a few occasions when people, in particular staff were a little too noisy and it was necessary for me to quietly advise them that we were completing a live broadcast.
Overall, the day was a great success and we managed to encourage a few listeners to make the journey to Aintree University Hospital and take part. I understand that with events such as this, it is vital to promote the event to ensure people are aware and to raise the profile. The hospital had advertised the event internally but we needed to encourage BBC Radio Merseyside listeners to attend also. Albeit there were not huge numbers of attendees generated by our advertising of the event, we did succeed in getting a few listeners to attend. We received many positive comments from attendees and helped to raise awareness of PARTIA and the excellent work that they do.
