This series is all about showcasing Libsyn podcasters. Its sole purpose is to introduce these awesome podcasts to the world as well as share their podcasting insight to empower the community!
Q & A with Lee Mallaby from Unofficial Universal Orlando
When did you start podcasting?
I began podcasting in April of 2011 and haven’t looked back since. Our podcast has kind of taken over my life but has given so much in return. We have new friends because of it and have had experiences that we never would have had, had we not began the podcast.
Why did you start podcasting?
Why I started podcasting is a very long story, so settle in.
My wife and I treated ourselves to our first holiday to America from the U.K, back in 2004, due to some health issues. Whilst in Orlando, we fell in love with the theme parks and America in general, to be honest.
Once home my obsession with the Disney and Universal theme parks quickly grew and I began looking for more an more ways to get my fix and somehow, I forget how now, I discovered podcasts and there are quite a few Disney podcasts out there.
I consumed as many as I could lapping up all the history and information they afforded me. As time went on a U.K based Disney World podcast began and I loved it, I would email in questions, I even submitted some audio segments for them as well as some live reports when we were back in Orlando in 09.
Not long after that, another U.K based show started and part of their show was a segment for listeners to go on the podcast to talk about their trip reports from Walt Disney World.
I jumped at the chance to go on that show and had an absolute blast being part of it, which fueled my desire to get into podcasting, to a point where I considered starting my own.
Now there are about 100 Disney podcasts out there and I didn’t think I could bring anything different to the table, our favorite theme park in Orlando was actually part of Universal Orlando and is Islands of Adventure, so, that was the route I began looking at.
I had an acquaintance on Facebook I knew was looking to start a Universal Orlando podcast, so I messaged him and we talked on Facebook and set a few ideas up, came up with a name and then organized a Skype chat.
Unfortunately the chemistry wasn’t there, so I had to say that he wasn’t right for what I was looking to do. So I began thinking of anyone I shared some genuine chemistry with………My Wife!!
“Tracey?” I said, “would you do this podcast with me?”
She panicked but eventually came around and we did a test recording using Audacity and a microphone from the Guitar Hero PS3 games. The audio wasn’t great and we were a little wooden, but we enjoyed it and so we found a host (not libsyn I’m afraid) and off we went.
Four episodes in we invested in some better headsets and were using total recorder to record as we planned to do some interviews. We’d planned to do a half hour episode once a month. Within two months we were putting out 2 a month at about 45 minutes to an hour and our audience was growing.
We quickly added a listener from Florida, to our hosting team, due to college/work commitments he had to bow out after 2 months, so we approached a listener who had done a trip report for us on a show, also from Florida, to join us and he (Darren) has been with us ever since.
We continued to grow and have added a number of members to the team, who do work for us on the ground, as we live so far away and then last December we were approached by Micechat.com to join their theme park podcast network, we resisted for a while, but gave in and joined and we have grown by over 5 times the downloads per show.
What is your show about?
The Unofficial Universal Orlando began by focusing on the Universal Orlando Resort and its two theme parks (Islands of Adventure and Universal Studios Florida) as well as its nighttime district, we had interviews and discussions and news, since joining the Micepod, we have expanded to now still primarily focus on Orlando, but also cover the parks in Hollywood, Singapore and Japan.
What is your podcast set-up?
Our podcasting set up currently consists of a Behringer Xenyx 1002fx mixer, 2 Samson Q2U microphones, with stands and pop filters, a windows laptop, total recorder software to record and Adobe Audition to edit and mix.
We don’t have a website or blog, currently, but it is in the works, but we publish our show notes to Micechat.com, which runs on wordpress.
How have you promoted your show?
We have used Facebook, Twitter, Instagram to promote the show, as well as going on message boards and word of mouth, but now Micechat is our main source of promotion and has made our numbers go up 5 fold.
What do you wish you’d know when you started podcasting?
Well, hosting on Libsyn instead of Po*an, would be a good start, other than that not much really.
There you have it, if you want to get your Universal Orlando hit, you know exactly where to go. Subscribe!
If you become obsessed with something, and end up wanting to podcast about it we’d love to support you in the process.
