by Marcia Hunt
Purchase Television held their first-ever holiday livestream event, “PTV Tries to Save the World with a Holiday Stream-a-thon.”
On Dec.11, PTV premiered a two-hour YouTube event, featuring performances from Purchase artists. It was meant to spread cheer to the Purchase community during the pandemic and raise funds for the charity No Kid Hungry. PTV by the end of the night raised a thousand dollars.
“I thought the show went amazingly,” said PTV live event general manager Thomas Kostic. “I honestly had no idea how much we were going to raise but seeing the donations come in as the show went showed me the work we all put in paid off.”
In theme with the rest of the pandemic, the PTV team didn’t know what to expect when they began preparations for the live stream.
“We had some pre-planning going into it, drawing inspiration from livestreams we've either watched or participated in, but we definitely had a go with the flow mentality,” Kostic said
One of the first big steps in planning a charity livestream was finding the charity to donate to. According to Kostic, No Kid Hungry was the perfect choice.
“Most of us running PTV haven’t helped operate a charity show like this before so when we saw how No Kid Hungry had tutorials so that anyone could set up a fundraiser easily, we had to go for it,” he said. “And obviously given the frame the world is, what better time than the holidays to do what you can to help those in need?”
Although PTV didn’t know what to expect, they were able to overcome the few obstacles they faced.
Unsurprisingly, members of the Purchase community outside of PTV were eager to help.
“Doing this remotely was obviously a hurdle, but surprisingly, finding talent wasn’t,” Kostic said.
According to Kostic, the PTV team picked the event’s line up by listening to the Real CultureShock 2020 playlist posted earlier this year on the Student Forum.
“We wanted to have the show be a combination of different tastes that can appeal to anyone,” he said.
One of the bands that performed was Purchase based band Swimrest. According to the band’s bassist Matthew Kleitz, Swimrest was excited to record a set for the livestream, even though they had to do so in a nonconventional way. Since the band had not been quarantined together, they decided to play outside and wearing masks.
“It was pretty cold outside but still really fun,” Kleitz said. “It was nice to play with each other for the first time in a couple months. We set up instruments and mics on a porch and then propped our phones up to record.”
PTV Tries to Save the World showed a glimmer of the once vibrant Purchase College music scene.
“We played some live shows at purchase and we miss doing that, but virtual Purchase shows will suffice for now,” Kleitz said. “Purchase definitely has a lot of talent and people who are motivated to make things like this happen.”
Because of the success of the holiday stream-a-thon, PTV plans on holding another next semester.
“We have some early plans to do another one next semester,” said Kostic. “We might make it a two-day event and make it like Culture Shock since that most likely won’t be happening in person.”
PTV is also looking into adding more variety in the types of performances, including skits and stand-up.
Kostic said, “With this being PTV’s first try at something like this and getting amazing results, I can’t wait to try and outdo ourselves next time.”