Today was a big day… RTÉ tour AND Irish dancing, a big day for the performers of our group. We took off to the RTÉ studios around noon to arrive in time for the 1PM lunchtime news.
CEA CAPA must have an “in” at RTÉ because despite the studio having a stark ban on tours, we were able to come in, have a tour of the gallery, studio and podcast room and sit in on the gallery during the live news as the operators were calling cues and switching boards. This experience was honestly a once-in-a-lifetime type experience that I will never forget. As a PR student, I didn’t spent much time in the studio spaces at Point Park and I never went on class trips to KDKA or other studios. This made the trip to RTÉ that much more special. I appreciated the brief overview of the gallery roles and functions before the news began as it allowed a special insight as to what was happening and being said once the cameras started rolling. It was also quite fascinating to see just how much time, effort and power goes into a 20 minute segment of news as I had never really thought about this aspect before. After the news broadcast ended we were able to go back in the studio and take pictures at the desk and in my business casual outfit I felt like a real news broadcaster.
We broke off after the RTÉ tour and had a little bit of free time before we had to meet back up at the CEA CAPA HQ for a quick lesson in Irish music and dancing. This was quite the interesting session that really forced some group bonding. The stories and information on Irish music was my favorite aspect as our speaker was an amazing storyteller and I loved how he included music within his storytelling. After he spoke though he had us get up and do partner dances in a very small space which was not as enjoyable as the lovely story time. The dancing was fun though despite the situation and I felt like the group as a whole enjoyed the whimsical activity as a change of pace from the business casual activities of days prior. Overall, a very unforgettable day of fun that was definitely a uniquely Irish experience.