do you remember when the beast from the East visited ireland?
It snowed for about three days solid, at first it was fun and exciting and we all stayed off school to go sledging and build snowmen!
…but by day three it wasn’t so much fun – the shops had run out of bread and milk, there had been power cuts, everyone was sick of the cold and even the kids had had enough of the snow…
I was particularly annoyed
because we were still snowed by Friday evening, and with more snow forecast overnight, I had no choice but to cancel Rainbow Phil’s Saturday Superhouse in St Anne’s Park!! :-O
So of course I posted to Facebook to announce the cancellation, but just so it wouldn’t be all doom and gloom I suggested that I could do a little show on one of those Facebook Live videos instead. I just asked if that was something that people would tune in to, not really expecting much of a response, and then everything went a little bit mental!!
^^^^ That’s a screen shot of just some of the comments ^^^^
The Public had spoken!
So I created an event page for a special one off snowed in Saturday Superhouse on Facebook Live at 11am the next morning and it almost went bloody viral!
People were tagging their friends in the comments section and I later found out people were even texting each other to say to tune in to the show the next morning – Crazy!
Show Time!
Come the next morning I was running late, so I posted a quick update to say I’ll be online in a few minutes – after which my phone wouldn’t stop buzzing with people commenting to say they’re waiting, asking when it starts, how do they watch it etc – it was at this point that the nerves really kicked in!
I’m used to standing up in front of rooms full of people and singing with their kids, I do it pretty much every day, but this was different. This time it was just me and my laptop with an invisible audience of goodness knows how many plus the whole thing would be recorded and saved for ever more on the internet – no pressure!
Here is the performance in its entirety, just over half an hour in length…
Facebook Live
The thing with Facebook Live is that it allows the audience to react and comment in realtime with the person who is making the video, Laurie Berkner does it from time to time and she’s always inundated with comments from people saying ‘Hi’ and requesting songs etc – I was hoping to have similar kind of thing (and also worried that no-one would interact with me while I was live leading to a somewhat awkward experience!) and you guys did NOT disappoint!
There were love hearts and thumbs up flying all over the screen and so many comments that I simply wasn’t able to give shout outs to everyone who commented – of course I tried my best!
The best part though, was that afterwards when people starting posting pictures and videos of their children watching the show – I could see them doing the actions at all the right times, it was great! Here is a selection of pictures that I was given permission to post online…
and even lovelier was the following week, when I had excited kids running up to me in playcentres telling me how they saw me on the telly, or that I was on the computer! There was also a lot of genuine thanks from parents too, so warm fuzzy feelings all round!
Rainbow Phil on the Telly!
I’m not usually one to go blowing my own trumpet, but having seen the pictures of the show, I don’t think I look too bad on the telly! What do you guys think? Should I do some more Facebook Live shows, or do you think should RTEjr should give me a regular slot on the actual telly?! Maybe someone should start an online petition or a hashtag or something? #justsayin