Announcers Anyone?

[Steve W]

Announcing is one tough job. It is the first job that I had with FIRST. I got my job by being in the right place at the right time. You also have to be a good talker, observant and not repeat yourself. When I finish an event I know that I am fully spent. A lot of people I know love it at the end of an event cause I can't talk for a couple of days.

What Erin said was partly true about the age issue. This is true for the MC job as the MC's are visual reps for what FIRST represents. I believe that with announcers who are the "Voice" and not seen (Well some are not), it is more on the presentation and sound. Believe me when I say that not everyone likes every style. There are peole that have told me I am good and others tell me that I am not. It is more my style that people like or dislike.

You do need to practice. It would be good to ask FIRST if you could get access to their training for announcers. Offseason events are a good place to practice and be noticed. There is also a lot less pressure at these events so you can do and say things with less people taking offence. You can also volunteer at a regional as a back up announcer. This will give you short bursts at the action without the presure of having to go for 2 days. You could also "announce" during practice on Thursday. If you can do this then the rest ain't so hard. Thursday is the hardest day as a lot of robots don't do much. By annoncing Thursday and spot filling then people will get an idea of the kind of job that you can do. Next is the matter of getting your foot in the door. Most regionals have the MC and announcer jobs filled from previous years. Your best bet is new regionals. The caution here is that the MC announcer jobs are very important to the competition. If you have a bad MC or announcer then the event can become very boring and disorganized. These positions are important to FIRST and they want people that can do the job filling them. That is why you need to become known 1st then go to step 2. My first year I did only the Canadian Regional. The second year I did Canadian Regional, Pitttsburgh and Championship. This year I was involved with CR, Pittsburgh, Detroit, Philly and Championship. Two of these jobs came later on after I found out that Detroit did not have anyone and I got a call on a Tuesday and was in Philly on Wednesday. Those 2 jobs were right place, right time and I was known to people.

The announcer job is a great job to have. You see all of the action close up and you get to talk. How much better can it get? There are also other tasks involved with announcing. You need to visit all the teams to make sure that your info is correct. You need to correct all of the announcer game sheets so that you don't make errors. You have to make sure that the MC has any info he needs and that you keep him on time. You need to be ready to backfill if problems come up. YOU NEED TO KNOW THE GAME AND THE RULES !!!!!

If you want to discuss more then feel free to email me. Remember that the MC and announcer job is not about ME but about THEM. Our job is to make it fun for everyone else even if it kills us. Have fun, Good Luck and I hope to hear from you at some regional (while I am in the stands enjoying).

[Paul Copioli]

Off season competitions and connections are the key. I was the MC at IRI last Summer mostly because those crazy Indiana people took a chance on me. I had never been an MC or announcer for any type of FIRST event until IRI. I then did California games and Ford Sweet Repeat last fall. My very first ever annoncing job was at the Great Lakes Regional this year, because of a recommendation by Dave Verbrugge(connections). I also ended up being the MC at the Detroit Regional based on my IRI debut and worked with Steve W.

What I found is once you MC or announce at a Regional event and are good at it, you will then get asked to more events than you are able to do.

To add to what Steve said; announcing is much harder work for me than being MC. It took me several days to recover (voice, mostly) from Great Lakes.

To directly answer your question: find out who the volunteer coordinator is for the Regional in your area and see if you can be an MC or announcer.

-Paul

[Jeff Rodriguez]

I asked Ron Partridge at UTC how he got announcing. Ron is one of the most experienced announcers and IMHO, the best. He sad that way back when (95-98, I'm guessing) he used to own the sound system that was used for Rumble at the Rock, in Plymouth MA. Since he owned the equipment, he owned the mic. He eventually started giving play by play announcing. It grew from there and now he does a few regionals each year and nationals.
The moral of the story: Buy concert grade sound systems and bring them to off-season comps.
I guess I'm just reiterating what everyone else said, start at off-season comps.

[Gene F]

I agree with everything that has been said so far! To get the exposure you should try volunteering for pit announcer. It's not as glamorous but you do get close to all the people running the event, get your voice heard, show your ability to work under pressure and demonstrate your interaction with the teams. I did pit announcing at the Championship in 2002 (and 2004) and was asked this year to announce at Palmetto. Announcing is a blast! There was a connection involved as well. Our team was very involved in planning the event and one of our members was the volunteer coordinator. Good luck!