WOMAD broadcast is just the ticket

Radio Adelaide

More than one million people are believed to have tuned in to free community radio coverage of one of Australia's best-loved music festivals, WOMADelaide.

The University of Adelaide's community radio station, Radio Adelaide, was on site at Adelaide's Botanic Park to provide coverage of the annual WOMADelaide world music festival.

This year, the festival featured more than 400 artists from more than 20 countries - living up to its status of bringing the public the "sounds of the planet".

The festival proved so popular that, for the first time in its 16-year history, WOMADelaide sold out of its allocation of three-day weekend passes, three days before opening night. It also sold out of its allocation of Saturday day/night passes.

This put Radio Adelaide in the box seat to give those who missed out on tickets a real taste of WOMADelaide.

In a program called Womadelaide 2008 LIVE! listeners could tune into the sold-out Saturday from 5.30pm to 11.30pm. More than 30 diverse performances were presented live on radio.

"More than one million listeners around the country were tuned in, as the program was broadcast nationally via two satellite networks, the Community Radio Network and the CAAMA Radio Network," said the Executive Producer of Womadelaide 2008 LIVE! and Radio Adelaide Station Manager, Deborah Welch.

"The program delivered some of the festival's best music to listeners around Australia, including some of the country's most remote areas, as well as to those listeners in Adelaide who missed out on a ticket."

Radio Adelaide has had a long association with the WOMADelaide festival. Ms Welch said this year's coverage was bigger than ever, "with six hours non-stop live-to-air, as well as podcasts, interviews and pictures live from Botanic Park, both on stage and behind the scenes".

The production and presentation team, coordinated by Radio Adelaide, comprised talented broadcasters from stations around the country, including presenters Seth Jordan (from Sydney's 2SER), Roger Holdsworth and Systa BB (both from Melbourne's 3PBS), Steve Hodder (CAAMA, Alice Springs) and Radio Adelaide's Michelle Smith.

www.radio.adelaide.edu.au