BBC Experience at Radio 1’s Big Weekend Norwich

In my younger and more vulnerable years I lived in a small cathedral city – the kind of place where the local front-page headlines boast such excitement as “Gardener Fights For Plot” and with a football club famed for a bizarre on-pitch appearance by Michael Jackson. This probably partly explains why, since moving to London, I fell in love with Norwich – home of a football club famed for a bizarre on-pitch outburst from Delia Smith, front-page headlines such as “Parking Permits D-Day”, as well as lovely old streets full of tiny shops, restaurants, pubs and dozens of churches.

“Dear Mayor, why is [sic] there so many churches in your town?” I wrote to the Mayor of Norwich shortly after my first non-business visit, aged approximately 29 years old. I received a charming reply from said Mayor explaining about the markets and guilds of the 15th century, which further endeared me to the place. One of those churches is now Norwich Arts Centre, my favourite live music venue of its size anywhere in the country, and in recent years I’ve returned many times to see gigs there.

So when Radio 1 announced it was holding Big Weekend 2015 in the home of Alan Partridge, and when I heard that the BBC Experience would be on site and was looking for volunteers, I was very keen to get involved.

The BBC Experience is a giant inflatable golf ball, filled with interactive exhibits showcasing all aspects of the Corporation. It’s travelling the country throughout 2015, giving audiences a chance to try their hands at presenting radio programmes, sports commentating, reading the news, being a weather forecaster or appearing in a Doctor Who promo picture – contents may vary, terms and conditions apply. Not only that, but it’s staffed by smiling, enthusiastic volunteers from across the Corporation, all “here to help” and keen to share their BBC experiences with the public.

As a part of my duties, m’boss Emma Russell requested a piece to camera showing the wider public the treasures that could be found within the inflatable ball. The doors were about to open and we had a limited amount of “on air” time, so I grabbed the nearest water bottle (pro tip: where no microphone is to hand, plastic bottles make cheap and effective substitutes) and led her and her smart phone on a whistlestop guided tour. We only had one collision, so that was quite successful. You can see the resulting video below:

Big Weekend opened to the public at midday each day, and the BBC Experience tent was open until 5pm. I began my first shift next to The Voice chair. However, this area quickly became quite congested with persons queueing to have their photo taken with The Doctor, and there was a limited amount of things I could say about it, especially to the guest who’d never heard of The Voice – “basically, it’s just a chair” she concluded, after I’d demonstrated its fully-operational voting button and given her an enthused explanation of its cultural significance.

Thereafter, I spent much of my time in the news and weather section. I absolutely loved it. Seating the newsreaders, speaking over the headset to the controllers backstage, operating the autocue, adjusting the camera, encouraging the weather people to “say what you see!” – and taking photos of the participants so that they could propagate themselves on social media – this was a full-on role, but one which I relished. After an hour and a half or so, I’d pop backstage for a cup of tea and a biscuit, and then it was back in again, back for more pretending-to-direct-the-news.

Visitors to the tent also had the opportunity to chat with local presenters such as Susie Fowler-Watt, who expressed her hope that no one was going to be too good at news reading and do her out of a job. Many people commented that it was far more difficult than they’d expected, to follow the words on the autocue while maintaining eye contact with the camera and keeping up a cheery, varied tone of voice. Many were astonished to learn that there was no script for the weather and that the clouds etc. don’t show up on the wall behind you but only on the screen. “It’s a lot harder than it looks,” they all said, agreeing that it was best left to the qualified professionals.

For a small town, Norwich has a strong and vibrant music scene, and BBC Introducing in Norfolk has been instrumental in bringing much of this to a wider audience on Radio 1. Ed Sheeran – from nearby Framlingham in Suffolk - himself started out round these parts. I was looking forward to checking out all that Norwich has to offer in the vicinity of the BBC Introducing stage – however, due to a combination of my exuberance in the BBC Experience tent and the resulting exhaustion, this was not to be. However – all was not lost – as on the Sunday afternoon we were visited in the tent by Rosie and Ellie from art-punk band Fever Fever, veterans of the BBC Introducing stage at Glastonbury in 2011, who wanted to have a go at reading the news and presenting the weather. I did try to capture their presentation on video but in my over-excitement I must have pressed the wrong button or something. I hope you can all forgive me.

Over the course of the weekend we had around 1,500 visitors and printed off a total of 1,261 Doctor Who green screen photographs. For safety reasons the tent can only accommodate 40 people at a time (including staff) and we had a queue outside throughout – except when The Vaccines were on.

By the time we closed late on Sunday afternoon I was pretty tired, but then it was time to go out and enjoy the festival experience. Taylor Swift! Foo Fighters! Queueing for toilets! Can I just say to the people of Norwich: your queueing etiquette is exemplary.

All in all, this was a brilliant weekend, and volunteering with the BBC Experience was one of the best things I’ve done this year. It’s great to get out and engage with audiences, hear what they have to say about our content and give them a taste of what happens “behind the scenes” – and also it’s good to meet other colleagues from around the country and talk about the different kinds of work we all do.

But mostly, if I’m honest, it was fun to play at being a director on the studio floor – “3, 2, 1, and… live!”

Charley Stone is BBC Previews and Promo Clips assistant and BBC Experience volunteer.