[cma-l] St Patrick's Day on Celtic Music Radio

[Bruce Rodger]

At Celtic Music Radio, we always like to do something a bit special 
for St Patrick's Day. Other than the annual "Celtic Connections" festival,
it's probably one of the biggest events in our calendar.


This year, in association with Tourism Ireland, we were broadcasting 
live from the St Patrick's festival in Downpatrick. We were on-air "live" 
today from 12.00-6.00, capturing a snapshot of the festivities.

Gordon and Alex headed across the water yesterday, and immediately hit a
problem. We were supposed to be broadcasting from the Down County
Museum - the old jail - but our promised internet connection was
not available.  The backup plans of wifi and 3G weren't practical
either, as the gaol has 2-foot-thick stone walls, so we had to find
an alternative.

So this morning, the intrepid Alex was exploring the main street, knocking
on doors and going into shops, asking if we could "borrow" someone's
broadband connection. At one point, it looked like we'd be broadcasting
from the butcher's shop!

We eventually found an ideal spot in the foyer of Denvir's hotel, and we
were on-air all afternoon. Lots of live music, chat and generally people
having a good time!


Around lunchtime, America woke up. Lots of people decided to google
their irish heritage, ended up on our website and tuned in. By 1.00,
we had hit our connection limit. A quick message to Bill and Grenville
at Canstream followed, and they kindly upped our connection
limit for the rest of the day.  As I write this, the number of
connections is still reassurringly high, about 3 times our normal level
for a thursday evening.

Sincere thanks to Grenville and Bill at Canstream/commedia.org.uk for
their prompt assistance and the temporary "overdraft"!

Bruce.

-- 

Bruce Rodger
Celtic Music Radio
bruce at celticmusicradio.net

Celtic Music Radio is a Scottish Charity, registration number SC041172