IsleofWight.live

IsleofWight.live

Earlier this year, I was waking up  every morning to live streams from wonderful places like Sydney in  Australia,  America,  Canada, Alaska. So many beautiful places in the world were being live streamed.

I live on the beautiful Isle of Wight and we are a  tourist destination. Tourism is our main economy and many of our local business owners depend on it for their livelihood. I was frustrated that very little live streaming or videoing of a beautiful island was being shared across social media. So I had a chat with my son Tristan, who is also my business partner in Allthingsnetworking.com and he suggested that I set up an Isleofwight.live Facebook page with the website to follow afterwards. He helped me set it up and then at the end of August,  with a completely blank IsleofWight.live Facebook page,  he suggested I livestream the carnival procession on that page. Not doubting his word I went  live on that blank page on that Thursday evening.

On the following Saturday evening, which happened to be wet and drizzly, I stood out in the rain and live streamed the illuminated carnival, while others watched in  in their PJs sitting on their sofas in the warm and dry. They were commenting in the thread and were grateful that they could join in without coming out in the rain. That is the beauty and the power of livestream. So that was two Carnival live streams and I did another short one about the carnival and with in two or three days over 1000 views had been attracted to IsleofWight.live. We were off and running. Since then, I have live streamed many things going on on the Isle of Wight, the beautiful little island on which I live and have done for the last 16 years. It's a small island off the south coast of the UK. It's reachable by car ferries and passenger ferries, The shortest crossing being about 12 minutes with the longest costing just under an hour. The transport links from London are very easy. I regularly go to London for granny duty and last time my return train trip was an hour and a half from London to Portsmouth. Isleofwight.live was set up to highlight the beauty of the island and the wonderful people who live here. It is called the Diamond Isle because of its shape, however many of the people living on the island are real gems and there is so much talent on the island. So much happens here. With over 50 festivals, Beautiful beaches and half the area is of an area of outstanding natural beauty then what is not to love about the Isle of Wight. If there are places that you would like to see  live streamed then please let us know. I have live streamed the journey across the water, I have live streamed Isle of Wight today, I have live streamed local shops, carnival parade's, Carol concerts et cetera. Many of our live streams are reaching  huge audiences and often the videos will have 1000 views in 24 hours. Recently, in fact on Halloween, The carnival organiser, Liz Allen, sent me a message to see if I could get to Tesco's to live stream Flashmob going on. I was in Newport and without transport, I had to rely on Southern Vectis and the number nine and the number two bus to get me across the island in time to catch the last flash mob of the day. I made it and that live stream has been seen 5.2 thousand times highlighting the charity work that goes on here on the island and on that occasion Melanie Griffiths, who runs the dance school Movement Junkie, led many friends and dance school members in a Halloween dance. It is great to see that the national chains get involved with the local community and on this occasion made a handsome amount to support Macmillan Cancer.

This weekend I have been out Live streaming the 20th Brighstone Christmas Tree Festival. I'm ashamed to say that I have lived on the island for 16 years and this is the first time I have visited. What an amazing event, held over four days Thursday through to Sunday . Over 200 trees in fact I think 260 trees were decorated and displayed in seven different venues. They were held in Saint Mary's Church, the three bishops pub, The Wilberforce Hall, the library, the reading room at the social club.  Then they were shuttlebuses to Mottistone church and to the Isle of Wight Pearl. In fact Isle of Wight Pearl and Brighstone Holiday Centre were encouraging people to use their car parks to keep the centre of Brightstone free . They offered free transport via the shuttle buses. It was an amazing event that I attended on Friday. However, with so much to see and so many lovely people to talk to I didn't gets anywhere near round the whole lot on Friday and had to return on Saturday. On Friday I just popped my head into St Mary's church just to see what I would be coming back to the next day . I  just spoke to gentleman who was putting out the chairs and how lucky was I that it happened to be Chris the organiser of the event and so I asked him if he would live stream to share the news with the world.

The power of lifestream means people can actually watch in and come and join the events if they are in the local area while they are still taking place. This was my intention by chatting with Chris. On Saturday I made sure I attended early and stayed all day and left on the last bus home. It was wonderful to see those at the village stores encouraging local producers to have stalls outside the shop. And so I was delighted to live stream with the Fudge maker and with the brittle maker, The bee lady and the sister of the shop owner. Who explained that the  shop stocked many other local products. I made my purchases including a book written by Caroline Knox, all about eating vegetables and drinking milk. The other shopkeeper was a jolly fellow who are engaged in a lot of banter and made his singing reindeer play to the camera. I thoroughly enjoyed my trips to the Brighstone Christmas tree festival and if you were not able to attend this year they just  click through to the links and share in the live streams. If you have never visited the Isle of Wight, why not come and see us. If you want to know more about the beautiful island, follow our Facebook page, our Twitter feed, and watch out for when the website goes live. Please enjoy all and share them with your friends your family and your social media contacts. We rely on tourism for many other businesses to survive and we look forward to welcoming you to our beautiful island very soon.