The Encore Show Evaluation

The Encore Show Evaluation

http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/10934324

Our Encore show was a musical based afternoon show aimed at 25+. Overall I think that this show was the best one to do live on the Children In Need day as it was different to all the other shows on the day and by previous rehearsals we discovered was the most popular of our shows.

In the research for this show we analyzed Elaine Paige’s Radio 2 show. From listening to this show we were able to decide how similar or different the style of our own musical based show was going to be compared to Paige’s show.

We decided to not have soundbeds for our show as they distract the listeners from what the presenter is saying. Also as a lot of the tracks have instrumental sections that soundbeds could sound similar to and therefore cause confusion.

When deciding our playlist we looked at our research and what the most popular musicals were. From this we decided to choose tracks from these musicals, as this is what our audience is most likely going to want to hear. We also looked at Elaine Paige’s playlist and chose tracks from the same musicals, as therefore we know that the songs are covered under our PRS license.

Similarly to Elaine Paige’s Radio 2 show we told our listeners information about the musical the track was from. This gives the listeners some understanding and background information about the track and would interest them as our audience enjoys musical theatre.

Our three features in this programme were musical reviews, what is this musical and an interview with a musical theatre student. We also included Greg Clarke and James Blackburn’s feature on Hairspray The Musical as it was relevant to our show and was a good opportunity for it to be heard. Also it is appropriate for the West End industry at the moment as the musical is touring the country and therefore our audience may have been to see the musical.

I think that our musical reviews of Flashdance and Blood Brothers worked well however they are more like synopses rather than reviews although still do their purpose and tell the listeners about the musical. The soundbeds behind the voice are well suited and liven up the review.

We uploaded our What Is This Musical videos to The Encore Show Facebook page and got a few responses. On these videos we said that the answers would be revealed on Stratcast on Thursday 18^th and therefore encouraging people to listen to the show to discover the answers.

Unfortunately our first what is this musical didn’t work as the mp3 cable wasn’t plugged in properly. It would have been better if the audio was on myriad and put into our schedule. However we didn’t get round to doing this and the others worked ok off of my mac.

As Esme was getting the information about the musicals from the script it didn’t sound free flowing and you could hear that she was reading. If we were to do this again we would have to practice Esme’s presenting and reading voice so that it sounds more conversational.

To improve our show I think that it would have been better to play more music as this is what I believe our audience most enjoyed about the show. However, due to the time limit and the need for a certain number of features we were unable to do this. We received quite a few song requests and it would be have been good if we were able to play these tracks as then we would be appealing to our audience. It would have also been valuable to have a live request system where we could have asked current listeners to phone, text or visit the studio and request tracks.

We decided to produce our show in a formal style as we wanted to aim the show at older target audience, as we believed that Stratcast was mainly targeting the younger generation. However, I think our show would have also worked well if we had been able to produce the show in an informal way with Amy and Laura presenting. As they are very energetic people this would have created a lively mood to the programme more suited for a younger audience.

Unfortunately, the beginning of ‘I’ve Had The Time Of My Life’ is very quiet and therefore couldn’t be heard very well. This sounds like a few seconds of silence for the listeners and therefore should have been checked in rehearsal and altered so that the ident ran over the very beginning.