You may have heard that WWCT 99.9 is holding their 2nd Annual Request-a-thon next Friday (December 10th) to raise money for the Heller Center for Kids with Cancer and Children's Hospital of Central Illinois.
During a Request-a-thon people can call in a request for any song, in any genre, for a donation to these charities... $10 to have a request played or $25 to have their request played before the others.
The extra cool part about this is that they are including originals from local artists this year!
In order for this to work, artists have to submit an MP3 of a high-quality recording with the artist or band’s name and the song title via email to Roxy at WWCT.
There will be a form for requests on their site to fill out in the next couple days, which PML will share as well!
Once you submit it to Roxy, you also need to let Peoria Music Live know which song you submitted so we can help tell people to donate and request your song!!
Here are the steps to make this work well:
Artists submit an MP3 of their original song to Roxy via email.
Artists tell Peoria Music Live what was submitted so we can encourage people to request and donate!
Artists tell their fans that it's been submitted and share the request form link.
More than one person has already commented that it sounds like a “pay to play” situation, which is not something I’m ever going to encourage artists to do. All money raised here is going to charity and PML has some ideas about how this could help the local music scene at the same time.
Also, please note that we are NOT asking you to request your own music. We are asking you to submit your music and let us help you tell your fans so they can make the requests! They will be helping a local charity AND getting one of their favorites on the radio where new people can hear them at the same time!
Here are some probable & possible outcomes (In no particular order):
People who listen to CT but aren't in the local music scene will be introduced to some fantastic local artists.
Songs that get a high number of requests are going to get noticed, both by fans, by PML, and by the station.
Obviously we can't promise anything will come of that, but it's a start and something that can be used to make an case for more local programming in the future.
If we send CT enough GREAT originals and the station gets requests for them by fans (as opposed to artists themselves) PML can make the case to do something like this again in the future, with the focus on local artists.
Money will be raised for two important area organizations that help children: Heller Center for Kids with Cancer and Children's Hospital of Central Illinois
I’m not going to name any names…. but I definitely know who
I hope to see submitting some awesome music! (Yes, it’s you… just do it.)