Advice for your first show

Here is some helpful advice collected from members of URY for your first show, and any show beyond that really. We hope that these tips may be useful of helpful to you, but remember it is your show and you can do whatever you want with it, so make it your own!

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For each hour of the show you probably want somewhere between 6 and 10 songs, depending how much you want to chat.

Plan out your show, think about what you want to talk about, who you want to talk to, and of course what songs you want to play.

Remember to use the Show Planner!

Write down some ideas of what you want to do, even if you don't want a minute-by-minute schedule (these can be very helpful however)

Once you start on something you'll probably find it fairly easy to keep going, try not to make your links too long. If you have a feature that is over 5 mins think about breaking it up throughout the show, or around a song.

Don't worry about messing something up, everyone does all the time, just continue, play a song, work out what you are going to do next and go on with the show.

Try not to talk about messing up either, there just isn't much point

When a song is playing it's easy to relax and not really think about where you are going next, which means the song will end (possibly when you are not expecting it) and you will suddenly be at a loss of what to do. If you have written down some planned items then you can fairly easily jump into one of them if this happens, if not then just go into another song and work out what you're going to do next.

Use beds and jingles

Spread the word that you are on the radio! Get friends / family / random strangers you pass on campus to tune in, most people won't care what you do on the radio because the fact that you're on the radio is pretty cool in itself. (This may wear off over time however =P )

It's great to have people messaging in, anyone can for free on the website and via radioplayer online and on mobile. Or they can text in. You can also get people to phone in, but you may want to save that for once you're a bit more familiar with the studio. All the numbers and stuff are on the walls in the studio.

Remember the news!

Turn up early.

Have a read through HowTo Start Your Show

Have a read through HowTo End Your Show

And finally, don't stress about it, it doesn't matter if things go a bit wrong or not to plan just have fun!