Battle Of The Bands 2003

2003 saw YSTV's first participation in the long-running tournament held annually in the Spring term by Band Soc and URY. It was at the organising committee's request that YSTV provide coverage of the event in some form, and this was eventually given the green light at a station meeting despite concerns about the proximity to Elections 2003. To this end Lorna Mitchell attended regular meetings on behalf of the station (initially with difficulties in securing co-operation).

It was decided that small crews of two people would film highlights of each heat, noting down memorable moments as they went, and edit compilation VTs of the bands to be screened as "openers" to their sets in the semi-finals and final. The final would also be accompanied by Woodstock-style filming and projection.

It was later decided to submit Battle of the Bands to NaSTA, more because of the lack of another music programme than anything else. As was customary at the time the live footage of the final wasn't recorded, mainly because there was no platform to repeat it (either from server or as part of another show) and also because as it wasn't transmitted on the network there was no media charter requirement either. It also seemed to be the case that the SVHS recorder was the first thing to be dropped should setup get too complicated or time-consuming! So instead of the coverage of the event, a few of the introductory VTs were edited together, and amazingly won Highly Commended Music Programme at the conference in Glasgow in early April.

One element of the final that was recorded, ironically, was a time-lapse of the construction of the ents rig, which a few weeks later became the main component of the Elections 2003 title sequence. Later this won Highly Commended Title Sequence at NaSTA 2004 so in a sense this was a double award-winning production!