Feature: JOY celebrates 16 years!

As you must know by now, JOY 94.9 turned sweet sixteen on December 1, World AIDS Day.

To celebrate 16 years of fabulous gay and lesbian radio, we held a big party with amazing entertainment, people in daggy 90's gear and, of course, rainbow cake!




We’ve been receiving some great press regarding our birthday too, including the cover of MCV, a feature in Sourthern Star and online coverage from online magazines and blogs. Check out some of them via the links below:

• MCV
• Southern Star
• Letter to the editor via MCV
• Gay2shareworld (QNN)
  
• Gay2shareworld (World AIDS Day Special Hide and Seek)

The Communications and PR Team here have been working hard to get as much coverage of the station as possible and recently there has been good reports regarding our advocacy work, birthday and the launch of QNN (Q-mmunity Network News) onto the national community radio network). The team is currently recruiting more volunteers who want to share their experience in public relations or wants to learn about it. To apply or for more details click here.

JOY 94.9 Sweet Sixteen Birthday

Feature: JOY celebrates 16 years!

Report: JOY Gets Its Guerrilla On Part II

A few months ago a volunteer who catches the train to work spotted JOY 94.9 on giant billboards at Flinders station advertising a car (deets here). It seems to have started a trend in the automobile industry with another market leader following suite and taking up the challenge to subliminally suggest to people that they should listen to JOY 94.9.

This time the spotting wasn't done at the train station, rather at the airport. Dean Beck from Hide and Seek (who we presume catches the plane to work) found this reference to the station on a BMW billboard this time at Melbourne Airport. How long do you think I should hold my breath for the fleet of JOY 94.9 Beemers to arrive out the front?

Now we just need to get JOY on a boat and we’ll have a complete Burt Bacharach song (Trains and Boats and Planes).

Report: JOY Gets Its Guerrilla On Part II

Coming Up: JOY on MCV Cover

JOY 94.9 has a very special opportunity to make the cover of MCV's World AIDS Day issue. We're having a photo shoot on Saturday 14th November at JOY Studios Level 9, 225 Bourke Street, Melbourne. We require 50 people for the shoot and we want YOU!

Dress in a white top (singlet, shirt, t-shirt etc...) and dark pants - email prteam@joy.org.au to put your name down on the door list. Hope to see you there!

Coming Up: JOY on MCV Cover

Coming Up: Tshirt Design Competition Closes Friday

How quickly time flies!

I know a few designers who wait until time is almost completely up before they even start working on a project. The astounding thing is they manage to make the work look as if they've spent endless hours labouring over it to bring it to perfection. Well, all you JIB-NOT (just in the bloody nick of time) designers out there, it's time to get to get cracking, because the JOY tshirt design competition closes this Friday!

So grab your crayons, textas, pencils or design applications and design a t-shirt for JOY in 2010 that will represent the diversity of your GLBTIQmunity. Throw in some colour, add some craziness, mix in some style. So show us what you think makes JOY 94.9 a great station and a voice for the gay and lesbian community.

The winning design will be printed on all the JOY 94.9 volunteer t-shirts and will be worn with pride at all the major gay and lesbian and public events the station will be involved with in 2010, including Midsumma, Pride March, Mardi Gras, Melbourne Queer Film Festival and National Youth Week.

To sweeten the pot even more there’s also great prizes up for grabs for the best entries including CDs, DVDs... and as a very extra special last second edition, there are two tickets to the ultimate New Year's Eve party Sensation Ocean of White. They're valued at more than $300 and it's for a fricken awesome party, so what are you waiting for? Get ya design on for JOY!

PS. Check out the video for Sensation. Might inspire something creative!

Coming Up: Tshirt Design Competition Closes Friday

Coming Up: Broadway at Bedtime 200 Shows Oct 25

In a special fundraiser event this coming Sunday October 25, Broadway at Bedtime will broadcast live from a musical theatre spectacular at the Alma Sports Club from 7pm to celebrate their 200th show. It's going to be a fantastic night, so please join Will and PJ in celebrating the special Broadway at Bedtime milestone!

Broadway At Bedtime is a weekly 2 hour radio program dedicated to music theatre and cabaret, which airs every Sunday night from 9pm and is the place to stay in the loop with all the latest show news, gossip and is ideal for the seasoned ticket holder or those like me who are brand new on the scene.

The boys work incredibly hard to bring a diversity of voices too and over the years their roledex has been chock full of incredibly talented people who are part of the 'in crowd'. They've called on these very names to bring you a night of pure entertainment and excitement.

JOY's very own Andy & Adrian will compere the evening, which includes amazing artists including:

• The Broadway At Bedtime Team
• Paul Dellit
  
• Drags Aloud
  
• Amy Lehpamer
  
• Adrian Li Donni
• James Millar
• Tyran Parke
• Josh Piterman
• Alex Rathgeber
• Kellie Rod
• Rosa Wax / Marney McQueen
• Robyn Womersley

Plus, in a moment of extra special wonderment, Lorna Luft will kick off the evening with a bang with a live video cross from the US - holy haberdashery, Batman!

Tickets $20 JOY members, $15 JOY member concession and $30 non-members.

Numbers will be strictly limited so make sure you get yourself a ticket now by call the station on 9699 2949 or online at broadwayatbedtime.com

Coming Up: Broadway at Bedtime 200 Shows Oct 25

Coming Up: Win Tickets to see Liza Minelli

Start spreading the news, because we have a very special JOY 94.9 fundraiser raffle - two tickets to the fabulous Liza Minelli concert at the Rod Laver Arena.

The concert on October 25 is sold out so the only way you can see this show now is by winning tickets! Each Liza Minelli raffle ticket is just ten dollars, you can buy as many as you like, and there are only 200 raffle tickets to be sold, so your chances of winning are very high!

To make the deal even sweeter, these tickets are for B Reserve - Emerald and are value at close to $350 dollars in value!

Life is a cabaret old chum, so buy your ticket today, by calling into JOY or by phone, but hurry, because once the 200 tickets are sold - that's it! More details www.joy.org.au

Finally, because you know I love the opera - I've snuck in a bit of a cross promo between this and The Fool and The Opera blog with Liza Minelli performing live with the amazing Pavarotti. This song always makes me feel good, I love how she gets so into the song that she chokes up!

Coming Up: Win Tickets to see Liza Minelli

Report: JOY Gets Its Guerrilla On

I'm very happy to report that we're doing bringing back old school style guerrilla marketing into the mix here at JOY 94.9. The creative style of advertising called "guerilla marketing" started off as an ideal way for companies and brands to cut through the clutter and crack the "fast-foward through the ads" mentality that formed as people (or as companies would call them, consumers) actually started taking control of media and using it on demand.

For large companies boring big market spend on TV, radio and billboards with a natty one-to-many message didn't engage audiences. This gave small companies that could be imaginative rather than relying on budgets to get their message across a competitive edge. The style that emerged was a method of advertising that would hit people in ways that were unexpected and sometimes even unconsciously.

Here at JOY 94.9 we've struck it lucky and getting the best of "big money spend" and subliminal advertising. And we've not even had to spend a single cent. It's nice having friends in high places isn't it?

Above is a zoom in of the giant billboard pictured at the top of this post as spotted by keen eyed volunteer Nick Bassett at Flinders Street Station. These billboards are also at public locations all across Melbourne and they all feature quite proudly the fact that the driver likes to listen to JOY 94.9.

To the design crew at Nissan, who clearly like to listen to JOY 94.9 in the car, thank you very much. If it wasn't the design team, then thank you to the god of serendipity!

And if you don't want to leave the comfort of your home, there's also the Nissan website with the 94.9 clearly marked too.

Report: JOY Gets Its Guerrilla On