Well, it’s the middle of June, which means everyone’s thoughts are turned to the holiday season. Or maybe I’m just insane.
Either way, I’ve been working on some ideas for this coming year’s Xmas Bash!!, which is bound to be a good thing, as it means I won’t go nuts trying to slap something together in the hours before the stream is supposed to go live.
With this much time to plan, I figured I’d open it up to viewer feedback.
For those of you who haven’t attended either of the past events, the Noiseless Chatter Xmas Bash!! is a live-streamed charity event. The main feature is a surprise assortment of horrible (horrible…) Xmas specials that I’ve unearthed for the sole purpose of making you hate television. There are host segments, music, and other goodies throughout. Last year I added some vintage toy commercials to the mix, and opened up donations to The Trevor Project as well. Oh, and, through it all, there’s a chatroom, which I think it’s safe to say ends up being more entertaining than all of the specials combined.
This year, I’d like to make it even better. I have a few ideas of my own (which won’t be spoiler’d in this post), but I want to hear from you, the folks who will actually be attending. And, hopefully, some of the folks who haven’t attended.
In a comment below, let me know the following:
- Any features of the stream (either year) that you really liked or disliked.
- How you feel about the length of the stream. Should it be longer? Shorter?
- I’m thinking of hosting the stream the weekend before Xmas this year (Dec 18-20, somewhere in there). Thoughts?
- How you would feel about an “encore showing.” It’d allow more people to attend, but it’d also split the viewership. Does that diminish its status as an Event?
- Last year we had a few outside contributors, performing music, magic tricks, and more. Is this a tradition you’d like me to keep up?
- And pretty much any other thoughts for improvements.
If you’d prefer, for any reason, that your response not be public, drop me an email at reed.philipj at gmail dot com.
Your feedback is strongly appreciated, and thanks again for making these past two years such an awesome success. Judging by the specials I’ve dug up for this year, I think we’ve all got great, great, terrible things to look forward to together.
I’ll see you there!
Those vintage toy commercials were the best!
The toy car that burned “real gasoline” was a personal favorite of mine…
I couldn’t watch the stream on my iPad last year and was very sad. Please take that into consideration when choosing your streaming service.
Wow, yeah, I forgot about that aspect. It’s a shame, because that streaming service was otherwise really good. I’ll keep this in mind for sure, and if you have any suggestions I’m all ears.
I have a different setup this year, so I should be ok, but it was more of a thought for others.
Maybe not QUITE as long this year? I hate to rain on the parade and all, but personally I can only watch so much absolute shite in one sitting. Although maybe that Power Rangers special was just too awful even for me. But yeah, I don’t exactly remember when it was, felt like a solid few hours in, but I had to get out and do something else.
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I also want to say “have it available for download afterwards” but making that a bonus for donations was a genius idea, so I’ll be putting a few pennies aside for TTP partly to help, but also partly to be able to watch the stream again. This is twofold, actually, since Aussie internet is, at best, mediocre, and at worst borderline fuckery, so if someone else in the family wants to watch something (something good) it can kinda cause issues, and it’d be good to get the DL to catch anything I miss. But that “Aussie Net” thing isn’t really anything you can fix, just part of the reasoning behind my “make it available for download again” suggestion/advice/request.
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I work retail, personally, so having the Stream on Christmas Eve (it was Christmas Day for me – again with the Australian-ness) was absolutely PERFECT. It made it a great way to relax after the HELL that was, and is, “Retail on Christmas Eve”. Plus it was the only Christmassy thing I did at all. So if it means having two sessions, or whatever, I’m down for it, since sometimes a smaller audience is more intimate, and less chaotic, like larger stream chats can tend to be.
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Plus I think my highlights from last year were the TV segments, not whole shows, like the David Bowie bit, and the Star Wars clip. Fuscoe’s Terrible Christmas just went on and on and on, and again, Power Rangers… The smaller clips were the best. But A couple of full blown episodes of stuff would be the “centrepiece” of course (if that makes any sense…).
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Anyway, that’s Rambletron 6000 over with. Hope it helps?
Yeah, those segments seems to go over well. That was just my solution to including more songs or spotlighting a special I didn’t want to show in its entirety (such as the Star Wars Holiday Special, which I wouldn’t inflict on a Nazi war criminal), but people seemed to like them, and I definitely enjoyed the snappier pacing. I’ll be doing more of that this year.
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I’m thinking I will do a second stream on Xmas Eve, based on this comment and Casey’s, so thank you!
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And I’ve heard you loud and clear, Raiko. More Power Rangers!
I actually liked seeing the things from outside contributors–these days, I really only consume media that I’ve chosen for myself, so it’s a nice change. And those toy commercials were amazing.
I think the encore showing is a nice gesture for people who can’t make the first one! Maybe the encore could be on Christmas Eve?