Friday 11 April 2014

Swift Day

Swift Day is the monthly celebration of Swifties all over the world to celebrate everything Taylor Swift.

Whether its hanging out with fellow swiftes, wearing all the Taylor Swift merchandise you can, spending all day watching Taylor videos on YouTube or DVDs, dancing around your room to Taylor all day or something completely different. There are many ways to celebrate Swift Day.

When is Swift Day you ask? Swift Day is the 13th of every month and while some people think 13 is an unlucky number, 13 has always been a lucky number for Taylor since she was born on December 13th. 13 has brought Taylor and many others very good luck in the past and will keep doing so. 13 has been lucky for many reasons including winning awards when she was seated in row 13 or row M as its the 13th letter in the alphabet.

I often meet up with my fellow Swiftie friends on or around the 13th of every month to celebrate Swift Day. This month we are getting ice-cream and heading to the beach to replicate photos Taylor has posted of her at the beach. Other activities I have done for Swift day have included going out to dinner, going bowling after work, buying merchandise, and freaking out over the pre-sale tickets going on sale the next day for the RED Tour.

The RED Tour in 2013 gave some Swifties a very special day on 3 occasions. Taylor performed The RED Tour for the first time on March 13th in Omaha, Nebraska, July 13th in East Rutherford, New Jersey and September 13th in Raleigh, North Carolina. What better way to spend Swift Day than with Taylor herself on tour.

Thursday 3 April 2014

Watching American Award Shows Internationally

As the Academy of Country Music (ACM) annual awards show rolls around this Sunday in Las Vegas, I think its a good time to look at how international Swifties from outside America have the opportunity to watch the awards ceremony live around the world.

As earlier announced the ACM awards are being broadcast live outside America for the first time this year to Australia on the Country Music Channel with both live and then prime time airing of the show. For the first time back in January the 2014 Grammy Awards were broadcast live in New Zealand. The decision was made to get the Grammy Awards live in New Zealand after the nominations were announced back in December with Lorde up for 4 Grammys to which she won 2 of them.

There are a few different ways people outside of America are able to watch and follow award shows live.
Some broadcasters have the full show and multiple live backstage cameras live on their websites where viewers from all over the world can get all the action straight to their computers. An example of this is CBS and the Country Music Association (CMA) awards night held in early Nov every year. International viewers were able to tune into their website and watch a range of live footage from the BridgeStone Arena in Nashville, Tennessee. Footage included the red carpet, backstage hallways, inside the arena and interviews beforehand. Viewers were able to switch between camera feeds as they desired through out the show.

If the channel airing the awards show does not do a live stream, other websites can be found that have the footage streaming live. Live stream links can often be found on the day of the show with other people posting online where abouts live footage can be found. These websites can however often be unreliable, have adds playing, stop unexpectedly (sometimes not at fault of your internet connection), and be delayed by up to a minute or more. While watching live shows this way can be really annoying and someone else online can just spoil for you what your about to watch online via somewhere like twitter, if you don't want to want to wait an hour or more for the video of Taylor receiving her Pinnacle Award at the CMAs, this way is a good solution. The footage however may not be the best quality like on TV but I feel you still get the same effect from watching it live.

So your internet connection is not good enough for a live stream but you do have a twitter account. Not to worry. Follow the right Taylor update accounts and you should be able to follow the entire awards show this way. Everything from photos and videos of Taylor arriving on the red carpet, dancing during the show to various other performers, to Taylor's performance and winning the awards that we are all so proud of her for winning. Yes you will see the same photo and video many times as each account posts it, but it also ensures you don't miss a single moment of the show. Twitter update accounts don't only keep you up to date with Taylor during the show but also every other star and performance happening through out the show.

New Zealand, Australia and the UK all streamed the 2014 Grammys on TV so this solved a lot problems for people wanting to watch the full awards show. Time differences allowed New Zealand and Australia to both have the Grammy Awards live on TV, however it was the middle of the night for the UK so sadly no live stream was available on TV but Swifties were still able to watch the show via other online websites or just follow along on twitter. I personally made the most of having the 2014 Grammy Awards live on my TV for the first time by just concentrating on watching them rather than being on Twitter and anything from the show I wanted to watch again came up online fairly quickly.

While its not an awards show, people from all around the world are often interested in Dick Clark's New Years Eve party held in Times Square, New York City each year. Swifties are especially interesting when Taylor is scheduled to perform that year. Taylor last performed at the end of 2012 about 20 minutes before the new year rolled into New York City. I'm not sure if the event is televised throughout America, but there are live streams on other websites that you can watch to see how one of the biggest cities in the world brings in the new year.

This year for the ACMs I sadly wont be able to do any of the events listed as I'm working, But I wish Taylor all the best to win EnterTayner of the Year for the 3rd time.